Diary, oh Diary
by Agent of the Apothecary
Summary: As if being the weird twin sister of the most beautiful woman on the planet wasn't enough; now my lab partner is god's gift to heterosexual females . . . and he wants to roast me alive. I hate college. // AN: I'll be honest, this is on hiatus.
1. In which girl meets boy

**Story**: Diary, oh Diary

**Summary**: As if being the weird twin sister of the most beautiful woman on the planet wasn't enough; now my lab partner is god's gift to heterosexual females (and he wants to roast me alive). I hate college.

**Notes**: Why yet another story? Because DoD has a very, very special place in my heart, and I want to showcase it. Plus, I kind of love Jenny.

_FAQ: WHY IS THERE NO WARREN?? _There is. Trust me. In coming chapters, you're going to be getting Warren coming out of your ears. And he's in the beginning, right?

**Disclaimer**: No own.

* * *

CHAPTER ONE: In which girl (Jenny) meets boy (Peace)

_Monday, September 7th, 9 am_

My lab partner is God's gift to heterosexual females. I am so screwed.

_9:03 am_

He is also a reticent jerk who refused to talk to me. I am slightly mollified.

_10:59 am_

A really, _really_ gorgeous jerk. At risk of sounding like a pedantic broken record: _I am so freaking screwed_.

_5 pm_

All things considered, the first day of classes went remarkably well. The lecture in Modern Lit was all introduction and class material – a welcome change from Biology, which was fifty percent introduction and lab processes and five percent major student-bashing.

My lab partner exudes pheromones like most men exude eau de Calvin Klein.

Fuck. _Fuck_. I knew this would happen.

Of course, I knowing didn't exactly stop me from enrolling, but I think a moderately-to-fully-grown woman should be able to go away to college, regardless of certain biological deficiencies that might prevent her from doing so.

I'm eighteen (almost nineteen), for Christ's sake. I haven't grown from five and a half feet in three years. I think this stupid thing should be under control by now.

It's not fair, honestly it's not. Why couldn't I have gotten some midget nerd who has half of the periodic table memorized? Or an idiotic, thick-necked jock who's only taking the class to fill his GER? No. Of course, in a fit of supreme divine irony, I get _him_.

We're talking smoldering eyes, rakishly long hair, biceps the size of grapefruits, legs up to here, and an ass to die for. Oh, and when he's not being a close-mouthed jerk, I think he may actually be intelligent.

NOT. FAIR.

Nngh. Only one thing to do, then. God, I hate doing this.

_5:37 pm_

Missy has agreed to Operation: Lab Partner once I outlined said partner's stunning physique. Really, all I had to say was "ridiculously attractive" and she was falling over herself to help me.

"So, how attractive are we talking?" asked Missy.

"He's your type, trust me," I said. "Ridiculously attractive. His ass is amazing."

"Ooh," cooed Missy, and the noise came through my cell as static. "Are we talking . . .?"

"Byronic," I finished for her. "Moody, too. Has the whole hair-falling-into-hooded-eyes thing down to a T. I definitely saw a copy of _Titus Andronicus _peeking out of his bag."

"A Shakespearean?" said Missy, snorting. "Lovely. He sounds like—"

"Boy Toy 2.0?" I asked. "Yeah, I thought he might resemble him slightly. But you and BT2 had fun in the sun for a while, before his incessant need for pillaging and death and revenge and whatever got in the way, right?"

Missy thought for a few seconds. "Fine," she agreed. "The ones you set me up with are always absolutely gorgeous. I'll pick you up after your lab on Thursday." She hung up.

I don't know if what I do quite qualifies as setting my sister up. More precisely, whenever I find myself forced into proximity with someone who could give the Dolce & Gabana perfume boy a run for his money, I bring Missy into the equation.

It's not safe to have me around them. So Missy gets a hot piece of man-meat to lug around and I don't have to worry about spontaneously combusting – literally – in the middle of a Biology lab. It's a win-win situation.

By Thursday, Hot Lab Partner will be lusting after my sister in all his Byronic glory, and I can get back to setting the groundwork for my genetics major.

Joy.

* * *

_Tuesday, September 8th, 10:25 am_

FUCK. Hot Lab Partner is also in Microeconomics 201. He sits directly in front of me, so I have a direct view of his stupid red-streaked hair.

He looks like a rejected Hot Topic model.

_11:05 am_

Perhaps I am moderately bitter, and therefore not the best judge of his attractiveness.

_11:07 am_

I really want to jump his bones. I've already shifted in my seat enough to draw the attention of most of the surrounding students. This cannot go on for much longer. I feel bad enough about asking Missy for this favor that I won't ask her to sleep with him on the first date, but I really, really hope she doesn't decide to play Sister Melissa with this one.

Sometimes I wonder if I should be more disgusted with myself – you know, for all intensive purposes pimping my twin out to hot guys so I won't spontaneously combust. Admittedly, Missy, being a future Hero of America, is big on Sacrificing Herself for the Common Good of the People (especially when the Common Good of the People require that she go out on long romantic dates with guys who wouldn't be amiss on the cover of _GQ_).

But still. I am her older sister, even if only by seven minutes. I should be talking care of her.

And it's not like Missy can't find dates for herself. That is perfectly evinced by the series of Boy Toys (Original through 5.0), who were all felled during their impressionable high school years by my sister's stunning beauty. I know everything about the six Boy Toys – with the single exception of their names – and for a while they all sounded perfect, not to mention perfectly in love with Missy.

Admittedly, when I set Missy up myself, the relationships tend to both last longer and end more amicably . . . but still. I am essentially having my sister sleep with guys to deplete their pheromones.

Nngh. There's something severely wrong with me.

_11:23 am_

Well, of _course_ there's something wrong with me. My genetic code, for one thing.

_11:47 am_

Who am I kidding? I've never taken care of Missy. She's spent her whole life taking care of me, poor little Jenny with her _deficiency_ and her crazy talk and her inability to go out in public.

I am a failure as a sister.

* * *

_Wednesday, September 9th, 12 noon_

Thank god, my Wednesdays appear to be thus far unscathed. No sight of Hot Lab Partner or the distinctive black cloud that thunders over his head. The guy is more emo than anyone I've met before. He no doubt plays electric bass.

_6 pm_

Can I get no relief?

Apparently not – because, you see, when I met Olivia, James, and Audrey in the student union at two for the infamous campus apple cider (but when everyone talks about it, they mean The Infamous Campus Apple Cider, capitals and everything) and a violent ping-pong tournament, who should be there giving my roommate monosyllabic responses but the Hot Lab Partner?

"Wanna play ping-pong?" asked Olivia.

"No," said Hot Lab Partner.

"You sure?" asked Olivia, batting eyelashes. She was being overtly flirtatious, much to the amusement of James, Audrey, and our fellow ping-pong tournament members, but Hot Lab Partner has obviously never heard of a sense of humor.

"Yes," said Hot Lab Partner.

"Liv, let's go," said I, and snagged her elbow. Hot Lab Partner barely spared me a glance. While attempting to remove Olivia from the scene of the crime, I noticed a flyer peeking out of his man-purse, along with the copy of _Titus Andronicus_. It was for a band playing downtown in a few nights.

Um, who totally called him being in an emo rock band?

I looked up from his bag, at least moderately smug, to find that he was looking at me more closely. His eyebrows twitched together minutely. No doubt this implied an intense degree of thought going on inside his lovely head.

I could feel the sweat begin to collect at the base of my spine.

"Hey, do you know—" began Olivia.

"Yes," said I. "He's my Bio lab partner. Off we go, Liv."

Olivia consented to being dragged off while elaborately miming for him to call her. I didn't see how he responded because I was too distracted by the knowledge that my knees would've turned into Jell-O if I had spent another two minutes in his presence.

James and Audrey were clapping slowly when Olivia and I joined them at the ping-pong table. "That was beautiful," said Audrey.

"Just about the most embarrassing thing I've ever witnessed in my life," added James. "I bow to your superiority, Olivia."

My roommate gave a few exaggerated curtsies, and blew loud kisses. Apparently a keg of the cider had already been gathered by the time I arrived, because everyone had a cup. A smirking girl with purple streaked hair handed me a glass, and introduced herself as Magenta, Audrey's roommate.

She looked familiar, in a same-corner-grocery-store-for-twelve-years kind of way. It wasn't enough grounds for uncomfortable questions about her past, so I accepted the apple cider and thanked her. She shrugged and vanished back into the group.

After scanning it, I quickly discovered that, Olivia, James, and Audrey excluded, I knew just about no one. When I mentioned this to Olivia, she told be to stop acting like an extra from _Little House on the Prarie_ and turned around to begin ordering people into teams.

We halved the group first by playing roommate doubles. Olivia and I trounced a pair of giggly future sorority pledges quickly, and we settled back with our cider to watch Audrey and Magenta kill James and his platinum blonde roomie. After a particularly scarring volley, James and his Day-Glo friend capitulated eagerly to the girls. Audrey gave James a conciliatory kiss, and Magenta laughingly smacked Day-Glo (Zach, I later learned) in the head, which I took to have the same romantic implications as Audrey and James's kiss.

After watching a handful of less painful games, the remaining players drew straws and settled in for the long haul. With years of practice under my belt, I made it to the semi-finals with little injury. Magenta and I were tied at the end of our game, and we were setting up for a sudden death round when Olivia realized that most of the participants had a Philosophy seminar across campus in three minutes. They grabbed their purses and backpacks and disappeared.

I was left behind with Zach.

"I hate Philosophy," he told me. "So does Mag. But she hates Psych more."

I was having trouble seeing what this had to do with anything, but I nodded anyway. "How long have you two known each other?" I asked, fetching ping-pong balls from the far reaches of the room.

"Freshman year of high school," he said, more fidgeting with the paddles than putting them away. "We both came here from Maxville."

"Oh," I said, figuring out why Magenta's face had looked familiar. "Me too."

There was a pause as we looked at each other. He was obviously considering whether or not he had seen me during high school, and I was trying to decide whether or not to lie and pretend that I had gone to Maxville High along with all the other good little kiddies.

"I didn't go to Maxville High," I offered. "Home-schooled."

"Ah," said Zach, looking a little relieved. "Eh, I went to a, ah, magnet school."

Personally, I didn't think the guy could string a sentence together. But hey, whatever.

"Cool," I said politely, and crawled under the ping-pong table to gather a handful of missing rubber balls. I was half-heartedly juggling them when I reemerged to Zach saying something. "Sorry, what?" I asked, and rubbed a cobweb from my forehead.

I realized that Zach hadn't been talking to me, but rather a startlingly tall brunet who had appeared out of midair. "Erm," said I. "Hi."

The brunet grinned, and his handsome face spread. I waited for the sweat, for the Jell-O knees, for the pull on my navel.

Nada.

Hallelujah, the guy had a girlfriend.

"Hey," he said. "I'm Will."

"Hi Will," I said, smiling brightly. "I'm Jenny."

I dropped my collection of ping-pong balls onto the table and dusted off my hands. Zach was fidgeting again, shooting me painfully obvious glances.

"You can go, Zach," I told him, taking pity on him and his self-induced awkward silence. "I can finish up here."

"Oh," he replied, relieved. "Sure, thanks. Cool. Will, let's go."

"Are you sure about not needing help?" asked Will, looking concerned. He had on a Look, one that resembled Missy's Must Protect the Unsuspecting Populace one.

"Do you know Zach from high school, too?" I asked, trying not to sound as suspicious as I felt.

"Yeah," he said, giving Zach an accusatory look.

"Just wondering," I trilled nervously, suspicions confirmed. "And I'm really fine, you guys can go." Even after I gave them all the permission needed by impolite teenage boys, Will stood there, giving me a different look. This one clearly declared that he was just as suspicious of me as I had been of him two seconds ago. Of course, my curiosity had been appeased, and he was still in the dark.

"See you," said Will, voice laden with meaning.

God, he sounded _exactly _like Missy.

"Sure, of course," I said, not meaning a word.

* * *

_Erm. No excuse. I know I keep on saying that, but this time it's true. I've already written - I kid you not - over sixty pages of this. Yes. I'm officially pathetic._

_Trust me: there will be Warren. There will be shirtless Warren. Gratuitous, since this thing is basically entirely about sex._

_God, my obsession with ruining the morals of children's movies is weird._

_Anyway - thoughts, anyone?_


	2. In which girl dissembles madly

_Notes_: Thanks for the love! At the moment, everyone has their shirts on. Stress on 'at the moment.'

(I'm basically pimping this fic out. Does anyone else sense a sort of moral ambiguity prospering here?)

* * *

CHAPTER TWO: In which girl (Jenny) dissembles. Madly.

_Thursday, September 10th, 9 am_

Oh my god he smells amazing. I don't think I can do this.

Breathe, Jenny. Focus on the lab procedure and ignore him. You'll be fine.

_9:15 am_

Shit. Shit shit shit. No lab today, just lecture.

_9:21 am_

I need water. _Now_.

_9:23 am_

My water bottle is sitting in the fridge in my dorm room, next to the box of frozen _giros_ Olivia's mother sent us.

_9:30 am_

I don't understand a single word coming out of Professor McNamara's mouth. My comprehension level is about zero right now. He is sitting _two feet away_ _and I can freaking feel his hair on my cheek_.

_10:15 am_

Oh thank god, a break. They sell water on the vending machine down the hall.

Shit, I have no change.

_10:25 am_

My first proper exchange with Hot Lab Partner, and it went something like this:

_Me (sweating like a stuck pig and my hair frizzing out to here_): Do you have change for a dollar?

_Him (looking at me like I'm a bug on the bottom of his shoe_): Yeah. (_He hands me four quarters, and I throw the dollar at his head rather than put it in his hand and risk physical contact_)

Even after drinking that entire bottle of water, I feel as though my insides have swelled up to twice their size and are pushing at my skin. Switching seats might be seen as a tad rude, not to mention that he has to be nearby when Missy shows up to shake her stuff.

I can't make it through a whole year of this. It hasn't ever hurt this much before. Hasn't this guy ever gotten laid? I find it hard to imagine that someone as gorgeous as him has made it through eighteen years of his life without someone jumping his bones.

Fuuuuck. Mom warned me. She _told_ me it would be painful and potentially fatal for me to go out and I, like an idiot, insisted that I was fine, that I could handle myself.

Who was I freaking kidding? There's a big difference between going to the grocery store for milk and living on a college campus with a sex-deprived Adonis as my lab partner. Not that he's eyeballing every girl in the class, or anything. It's just _radiating_ off of him. He's like a fifteen year old kid nursing a semi for his first girlfriend. Or at least, that's what his pheromones are saying.

Five minutes. Class is over in five minutes. I can survive five minutes.

I hope.

_12 noon_

Well . . . _SHIT_.

So class ends at eleven, as dutifully promised in the roster, and just as people begin to shove stuff in their bags and stand up, Missy gracefully swings into the room, pushing her white-rimmed sunglasses to the top of her head and not even panting from the across-campus sprint I know she just performed.

"Hey, Jenny," she says in her low alto from across the room, and every male in the room screeches to a halt. She saunters in, her trapeze top swinging around her frame easily, mile-long tan legs capped by itty-bitty pinstripe shorts that manage, rather like my sister, to be both sultry and proper. She smiles at me, and I hear breaths indrawn across the room.

She's captivated them all. There's only one I'm worrying about.

"Hi Missy," I said back, and my voice is scratchy and low from tension and disuse rather than sexual innuendo. I try to look at my lab partner inconspicuously, and to my relief he seems just as stunned at seeing her as everything else male in the room.

Then she's standing in front of our lab table, and tilting her head to the side as she looks down at me, her shorter, less perfect twin, sweating through my short-sleeved t-shirt and clutching my notebook with white-knuckled fingers. I'm hyperaware of him, and whatever is in my eyes must warn Missy about my tenuous condition because she turns her smile on my lab partner almost immediately.

"Hey," she says, her eyes moving last, "introduce me to your—" and she freezes.

Not literally, which has been known to happen. But her smile stops spreading, and her eyes widen slightly.

"No introduction necessary," says my lab partner. "Didn't know you were the college type, Missy." At the sound of her name, Missy collects herself.

"Warren," she purrs. "Hello." She's still trying, for my sake, and that's what makes me pull my sticky legs from the metal chair and stand up quickly. My head spins but I manage.

"You, ah, know each other?" I ask.

"Of course we do," says Missy, and her eyes tell me that he's a former Boy Toy, that they've already met and kissed and probably fucked and me and my Biology grade (and Microeconomic grade) are royally screwed.

I garble something unintelligible and shove everything I can get my hands on into my messenger bag. Missy is still looking at him, half-smiling, and she asks how he's been as I collect my scattered pencils.

"Fine," he says. Sweat beads at my left temple and trails down the side of my face. I can feel it pool at my chin for a moment before it falls down over the dip in my collarbone and down between my breasts. "You?"

"Oh, fine," she echoes.

"Let's go," I say, but my voice catches and nothing beyond the 'L' comes out. I clear my throat and try again. "Let's go, Missy."

"Sure, Jenny," she agrees, and I walk around the lab table to her side, and she puts her hand on my elbow. Almost immediately I feel the coolness spread across my body, freezing the sweat into crystalline beads. They drop to the floor in a tinkling patter as we cross the empty classroom and walk out the door.

His eyes follow us. I know, because every nerve in my body is telling me to turn around and find him, to do something unmentionable and oh so tempting, and I close my eyes and rest my head against Missy's shoulder as she guides me back to my dorm room.

I can't stay here, I know. It rankles that I'll have to call my parents and tell them that they were right, that I can't control it, that four days into college and already the need is overwhelming me.

I hate being helpless, but I don't really have any other choice.

_11 pm_

I'm sitting in Missy's bathroom. It's nice (and clean), because she bagged the sophomore housing lottery and got a suite-style place. As a lowly freshman, I live in a traditional dorm. If I hadn't been home-schooled, if I didn't have my –ahem – _deficiency_, then I would be a sophomore, too, and would have my own room rather than using my sister's.

Then again, if I hadn't been home-schooled, all of this afternoon might not have happened. Or it might have happened a year earlier.

Olivia came back from her architecture studio mid-afternoon to find me packing my bags. She asked what was wrong, and I lied.

"I can't take college," I told her, folding my clothes, clothing that I'd never worn farther than the grocery store or the movie theater, clothing that I had looked forward to wearing out in a bar or shooting pool at the student union. "I'm going home."

"You're _leaving_?" she demanded. "What's this about? Why?"

I repeated my paltry semi-truth and she glared at me.

"Don't be ridiculous," she snapped. "You're the most capable person I know."

I'm not capable of controlling that one most important thing, but Olivia didn't know that, and I wasn't about to tell her.

"Not really," I argued. I folded a silvery green sundress, one that had been Missy's before her final growth spurt. I'd had it dry-cleaned and fully pressed for the party Olivia, Audrey, and I had planned on going to on Saturday. "I'm going to go home."

I called Mom right after Biology and told her answering machine everything, the entire sordid story. She was out on a call, of course, but she called back an hour later, sounding exhausted. She'd been sympathetic but curt, reminding me that I'd been warned. She said she was glad I was coming home. They hadn't emptied my room, of course. They were so sure I'd be back before the end of September.

"No," said Olivia. "No, you're not."

I didn't look at her. "Yeah, Liv. I am."

"Did you parents talk you into this?" she asked. "Did Missy?" I begin to deny it, but she continued over me. "You've spent your entire life being at home, being home-schooled and home-reared and home-entertained. You were – you _are_ so excited about from being out from under them. You're giving up all this freedom?"

"I can't handle all of this freedom," I told her.

"Why?" she said. "What, because you've got a crush on your Biology lab partner?" I looked up from my suitcase to find her glaring at me. "Oh, come on," she replied to my unspoken question. "It's so obvious from the way you wouldn't look at him before the ping-pong tournament."

Actually, I have something slightly more than a crush on my lab partner. More aptly put, I want to tie him to a bed and have my wicked way with him . . . but nice girls like Jenny Monroe do not tie their hot emo lab partners to beds, especially not when these nice girls have a genetic mutation that makes them hypersensitive to lust.

"It's not a crush," I began, but Olivia grinned.

"Poor little Jenny, living in denial." She winked. "You want to jump his bones, right?"

Obviously Olivia is far more observant than I'd previously given her credit for.

"Maybe," I answered cautiously.

"My god," muttered Olivia, rolling her eyes. "Just ask him out, then."

Oh, sure, Liv. Easier said than done. Asking him out would require talking to him, would require spending extended periods of time with him. Talk about torture.

"Not easy," I said, and resumed packing. "In fact, not possible. At all."

Two seconds later Olivia grabbed me by the upper arm and dragged me out of our dorm room. She stomped down the hall and knocked and entered Audrey's room, me flailing behind her helplessly. Audrey wasn't there, but Magneta, Zack, Will, and a willowy redhead were.

"I have with me a roommate in desperate need of a reality check," said Olivia to the room, before fully recognizing its occupants. "Oh, hey. New chick?"

"I'm Layla," said the new chick. "Will's girlfriend." She waved.

"Hi Layla," said Olivia, and secured me against her side with a bicep made out of iron. "Will, do you know where Peace is?"

Oh, fuck. "Olivia!" I shrieked, and increased my flailing. She ignored me.

"Well?" she asked.

"Uh," said Will, looking at me and then back at her. "He should be coming down in a few minutes."

"Perfect," said Olivia, and she propelled me onto Audrey's empty – but impeccably clean – bed. "Sit, Jenny," she ordered. "Don't let her leave," she added to the room's previous occupants, who were looking a little uncomfortable. "I'll be back."

With that, Olivia disappeared.

"Goodbye," I said, standing quickly. "It was nice meeting you, Layla, and the rest of you guys too. When you're back in Maxville, feel free to stop by the Monroe residence for some intense ping-pong."

"Are you going somewhere?" asked Zack, master of the obvious.

"Yeah, back home," I said, backing out of the room. They didn't look like they would fulfill Olivia's orders, but one never knew. "Uh, you know. College and I didn't really, uh, mesh."

The door was two steps away when Olivia reappeared.

"Where do you think you're going?" she demanded. "Sit!"

"Er," I said, and Missy was in the doorway, a bag labeled with Moe's distinctive insignia in hand.

"Dinner, Jenny," she said. "Come on."

"Nuh-uh," replied Olivia. "Not 'til Peace gets here."

Missy's eyes narrowed. "What have you got planned?"

Behind us, someone from the foursome asked, "Missy? Missy Monroe?" and she looked over my shoulder and sighed.

"Great," she muttered. "The gang's all here." And then, to make the situation even better, a glowering Warren Peace slouched in behind her.

"Happy reunion," he said, glaring from under his hair. He had obviously reevaluated coming to see his frosh buddies. "See you, Stronghold." He made to vanish – rather like I wanted to – but Olivia let go of me to latch onto him. Somehow, most likely excessive use of centrifugal force, she swung him, and Missy, into the room.

Then she slammed the door shut between her and us.

Instantly, I was wheezing. I stumbled over to the window and threw it open as far as it would go. I leaned out and took in great gulps of air. I could still feel him, but the cool air helped.

Behind me, Will was saying, "Jenny's your _sister_? Why wasn't she at Sky High?"

"Long story," snapped Missy. There was a crinkle as she no doubt flapped the Moe's bag in their direction. "One I don't really want to get into right now. Jenny and I are going to eat our tacos back in her dorm and then we're going to go home. Warren, stop blocking the door."

"Hey, Jenny," said Zack. "Why are you going home, again?"

I couldn't get enough air to answer, and besides, Missy was happy to help. "Because she needs to get back to our parents," she snapped. "Not that it's any of your business, Day-Glo."

I looked down at the bushes a story below. It wasn't that far a drop. I'd climbed down farther.

"Why?" asked Will. It was probably his suspicions from the day before that prompted the question. "What do your parents need her for?" He might as well have just openly declared he thought I was a villain-in-training.

I pushed the window open with all of my body weight, and it squeaked, protesting, before giving way another few inches. Even the new air couldn't erase the weight that pressed down on my body, that asked that I turn around and look at him, talk to him. Kiss him.

"Frankly no business of yours, Stronghold," said Missy brusquely.

I threw one of my legs over the window frame, straddling the concrete so the rough cement scratched the inside of my thighs exposed by my linen shorts. It felt delicious, and for a second I sat there, before the pressure started again.

"Hey, Monroe," said Warren Peace, his voice scratching my insides and almost turning me inside out. "What are you doing?"

I didn't look at any of them before I threw my other leg over the window frame and jumped.

The pressure eased and cracked when I hit the bushes. It hurt, but it was a different, superficial kind of hurt that I vastly preferred. Winded, I lay spread-eagled on the hedges and looked up at the sky. Missy and the redhead, Layla, stuck their heads out of the window.

"Jenny!" shrieked Missy.

I tried to say that I was fine, but I just wheezed and waved my hand at her. All right, so the fall had hurt a lot. But I didn't feel like my organs and skin were about to be reversed anymore, like my brains were being pushed aside and up against the walls of my skull. It was a nice hurt, one I appreciated but wouldn't want to repeat.

"Don't move!" yelled Missy as Layla's head was replaced with Will's. "Oh god, you could've broken something!"

I started laughing, and once I had I couldn't stop.

"I'm coming down," said Missy, and I waved for her to join me. She elected to take the stairs rather than the shortcut, and twenty seconds later she was tumbling out of the front door of the dorm, along with her tail of freshman heroes.

"Are you insane?" demanded Magenta when they were within earshot. I couldn't stop laughing, and I rolled over and fell off of the hedges, landing on all fours in the dust at Missy's feet. I could tell, from their voices and their concern, that they all thought I was crazy.

After all, here I was, twin sister of the infamous Missy Monroe, and they'd never heard of me. They'd never seen me before. And the day they learn of my identity, I jump out of a second story window. If I were a casual outside observer, I would've thought Jenny Monroe was crazy too.

But I wasn't crazy. At least, not how they thought I was.

"Now," I told Missy as my giggles died down, "is probably not the time to tell them the truth."

"I disagree," said Will. He sounded powerful; in control. Probably he meant to be intimidating as well, but at the moment the pain in my ribs was blocking out everything else. I knew Warren Peace was in the crowd around me, but for the first time I couldn't feel him.

It was wonderful. Freeing, like the fall.

"Too bad," I said, and giggled. "Too bad, too bad. You're just going to have to stick with thinking that the older Monroe twin has gone off the deep end."

I knew how I sounded, and it would've made me cringe (God knows it makes me cringe now, perched on Missy's toilet, writing by the light in the bathtub), but I was drunk off the feeling of, for once, being absolutely alone. I wasn't hyperaware of another's presence for the first time since I was eleven, and as I rose back to rest on my knees, I kept my eyes closed to preserve the illusion.

"I don't feel anything," I told Missy. "I can't feel him at all. It's wonderful. Absolutely wonderful."

"What?" she asked. "Shit, Jenny, Jenny look at me. Did you hurt your head in the fall? Can you feel all of your limbs? Can you wiggle your toes?"

I laughed and raised my hands and waggled all of my fingers in the direction of her voice. "Is this what it always feels like? Not knowing?"

And oh god, it did feel amazing. There was no pressure, either the real pressure that would build up from my overexposure to the male sex drive, or the pressure that my parents laid on me to keep all of it a secret, to not share why they kept the older Monroe twin home-schooled and locked away. They worried about what their colleagues (like, say, Will's parents) would say. For once, I couldn't care at all.

"Well, she sounds perfectly fine," said someone to my left, and I figured that the dry sarcasm was vintage Magenta.

"She sounds crazy," corrected Zack.

"She's not crazy," said Missy. "The fall jostled her hypersensitivity."

"You make it sound like a car stereo," I said. "You can't jostle hypersensitivity, Missy. It's all written into my genome. Biologically speaking, you aren't making sense. Silly Missy."

"Yeah, yeah," she replied. "Silly Missy, never getting Jenny's complex scientific explanations. Open your eyes, Jenny. We're going home."

"It'll come back," I said, and covered my eyes with my hands. "And it won't ever go away. Mom said it'll always be there. I don't want it back. It hurts."

"She sounds schizophrenic," someone said, and that _someone_ was Warren Peace.

"Shut up Warren," said Missy, quickly and not nastily, but his voice was in my brain and I could feel my body reacting.

"Make him go away," I said, more of a whimper, and curled up so my eyes were pressed against my knees and my hands moved around to cover my ears. "Please, make him stop."

After a while, sitting curled in the silent darkness, the pressure in my chest eased and melted away. I felt better – not like I had in the minutes where the hypersensitivity had been gone all together, but back to my standard of normal. I was aware of how crazy I had sounded in the last few minutes, and the last thing I wanted to do was uncurl and face Will and his friends and all of their questions.

But we Monroes were born to be heroes – or so claimed Mom when I was eleven and I got a nosebleed when visiting my friend Jimmy, a nosebleed that was severe enough that she took me to the emergency room and they gave me a CAT scan and an MRI and told her that my brain was wonky – and so I removed my hands from my ears and sat up, blinking away the light.

They were all gone. Missy had done the impossible and ditched the heroes. I don't know how she had done it, and I didn't want to ask, either. Instead, she helped me to my feet and we lurched together to her dorm. There, we ate slightly squished tacos and talked about football.

Tomorrow, I suppose, I'll be going home.

* * *

_Er. So you probably think that Jenny's borderline psychotic, right?_

_Sorry. Would you believe me if I told you it was necessary to the plot? No? (awkward pause) Er . . . hehe . . . thoughts?_


	3. In which girl has savior

**Notes:** Thanks for the reivews - and thus, a chapter in which we actually (gasp) learn something! Plot? What is this plot of which you speak?

* * *

CHAPTER THREE – In which girl (Jenny) has savior (Kinthus)

_Friday, September 11th, 2:11 am_

You know, Missy might be right. If the fall 'jostled' my hypersensitivity . . . then wouldn't it make sense that repeating the conditions might produce the same effect?

I'm mean, I'm not going to start throwing myself out of windows whenever Warren Peace is around. But if I could hamper it once, I could do it again.

_3:39 am_

I woke Missy up and tried to explain the idea to her as best I could. She's not a morning person and was grumpy and annoyed, but I think after a while she understood what I was trying to say.

She told me not to jump out of any windows.

She told me to call Dr. Kinthus.

_4:08 am_

Of course, Dr. Richard Kinthus is asleep, as is the rest of this university. His first class, according to the university website, is Neurology 132 at nine in Torguson Hall. He has open office hours from seven to eight-fifty.

I just might be able to catch him before my Calculus class at nine-thirty – which I suppose I'll have to go to, now that I have some hope/encouragement/future.

Gah. I hate Calculus.

_5:21 am_

I can't sleep, now. The idea won't let go of me.

The idea of sitting next to Warren Peace in Biology and being able to concentrate on class instead of sex; of riding the bus and not worrying about missing my stop because of the man sitting next to me; of going to the grocery store and looking the attractive cashier in the eye rather than slinking along, avoiding his gaze.

Oh god, I've waited almost eight years for something like this to come along.

_5:58 am_

Missy just kicked me out of the bathroom. She told me not to get my hopes up.

I can't help it.

_8:45 am_

Dr. Kinthus is talking to one of his students right now. I can hear their voices through the wavy glass of his door, and one of them doesn't sound too happy. I doubt that anyone is contesting their grades this early in the year, and the ones from last semester are already sealed in stone.

Hmm. Perhaps Dr. Kinthus is having an affair with one of his students?

. . . HAHAHA.

The guy is at least sixty, bald on top and scraggly on the sides, and wears glasses that haven't been in style since the 80's. He's an absolutely brilliant geneticist, and he's an average sidekick, thus why he teaches rather than rattling around in spandex and sparkles. Makes sense to me, but Mom and Dad don't get it.

Ooh, doorknob rattling.

_9:32 am_

He'll do it.

Whoops, late for the dreaded Calc – more later.

_12:06 pm_

To explain: Dr. Kinthus is intrigued – his exact words, "I am intrigued" – by my circumstances. Admittedly, it was embarrassing to tell a man old enough to be my father that I can't sit next to an attractive (excessively attractive, but still) man and not feel the need to jump him unless he has a significant other he is routinely screwing. But Dr. Kinthus took it in stride and I stuck to technical language.

He knows my parents. He also pretty obviously doesn't like them, judging by his grimace when I told him my name. But he says that he'll call them, and convince them to let me stay.

I near about hugged Dr. Bald-on-Top-And-Scraggly-on-Sides, but by then he was already late for his class and I was borderline for mine, so we shook hands and parted ways.

Oh god, I'm so happy. They told Mom, after the first series of MRIs, that there was nothing they could do, that my superhero gene was melded enough into my frontal lobe that they could never hope to separate the two.

And they could be wrong.

_12:10 pm_

(AHHHHHHH!!)

_7 pm_

Olivia's ecstatic that I'm staying. She thinks it's because I've decided to move onto pastures greener than those frequented by Warren Peace, who she kind of thinks is a jerk (no surprise there).

Mom, less so. Our phone conversation went mostly like this:

Me: Mom, I'm not coming home.

Mom: Of course you are. Why would you stay?

Me: I fell out of a second story window into some bushes yesterday. It was an accident, don't worry. (_I pause to let her worry, but she doesn't respond_) The hypersensitivity went flat. It sort of . . . vanished, for a little while there. I mean, it came back and all. But it was gone.

Mom: Don't be ridiculous.

Me: I talked to Dr. Kinthus, Mom. He believes me.

Mom: _mumbles something unintelligible_

Me: I know you two have had your differences and all, but he's encouraged, and he's willing to try and figure it all out. Not just how to fix it, Mom, but other stuff. Like what it is. Its boundaries. Stuff we never did.

Mom_ (speaking after a long pause):_ If you're so convinced that Dr. Kinthus can help you, I suppose I can't kidnap you and make you come home.

Me: Uh. No. Not really.

Mom: Fine. But I will be having a conversation with Dr. Kinthus.

Me: Great. He's expecting your call.

Mom: I'm pleased. (_A phone rings in the background_) I have a call, Jenny.

Me: Go kick ass, Mom.

Mom: Ah, yes, well.

And she hung up. Seeing as how there isn't anything on national news about Penance suddenly dropping dead, I assume she got home okay.

Tomorrow is my first official appointment with Dr. Kinthus. He figured it would be best if we got started right away, seeing as how I have Bio lab with Warren Peace on Monday. I doubt we'll get much down in those forty-eight hours, but I already feel like we've accomplished something, simply by starting.

God, I'm being too optimistic. Missy's right, this is probably going to fail miserably.

_7:48 pm_

Even if it does (fail miserably, I mean), at least I tried.

_7: 51 pm_

Is that what they're going to put on my tombstone? "Here lies Jennifer Elizabeth Monroe, who died in the process of trying very hard."

Well, that's depressing.

* * *

_Saturday, September 12th, 7:57 am_

OH MY GOD WARREN PEACE IS IN DR. KINTHUS'S OFFICE. WHY IS HE HERE??

_8:11 am_

He is here to help conduct the experiments about my disorder.

And it's obvious from the bored expression on his face that he has no idea what my "disorder" is. Missy just called it hypersensitivity, and knowing Dr. Kinthus, he used archaic medicalese when describing it. Warren Peace can't know the whole truth because if he did, he would be huddled in his dorm right now, brandishing a cross and crying out in Latin.

Either that, or trying to roast me. I've figured out that Warren must be the Shakespeare-loving Byronic Boy Toy 2.0, who, according to Missy's accounts at the time, was fond of throwing fireballs at people he didn't like.

Have I mentioned lately that I'm screwed?

_9:30 am_

Ho boy, Warren Peace had _no_ idea.

The past sixty minutes or so have managed to be one of the most excruciatingly embarrassing hours of my entire life. Even if Dr. Kinthus_ does_ manage to do the impossible and cure the hypersensitivity, Peace and I will still fail Bio lab because we can't look at each other without blushing.

Well, _I _can't look at him without blushing. There are moments where I think that Warren Peace is utterly incapable of human emotion, other than annoyance and extreme rage.

So, after sighting Warren and demanding an explanation from Dr. Kinthus's flustered secretary, I finally approached his office. Inside, he and Warren were discussing something that obviously had to do with me, because they both stopped speaking and turned to look at me when I entered.

"You're late, Jennifer," said Dr. Kinthus.

"I was here at eight," I said, standing in the doorway. Peace was leaning back in one of the two armchairs in front of Dr. Kinthus's desk, his booted feet propped on the mahogany desk in front of him. The t-shirt he was wearing bunched up across his biceps, and tattoos of spiraling flames crawled from his wrist up his forearm. He looked like he had actually washed his hair recently.

I had to suppress a whimper.

Kinthus motioned me inside. When I didn't move, his lips parted silently in realization, and then he turned around in his handy swivel chair and opened the window behind him. It didn't help entirely, but I closed his office door behind me. I stood with my shoulder blades against the wood.

"Sit, Jennifer," said Kinthus.

I didn't move. A sprig of heat coiled in my navel and wrapped around my belly button. Peace wasn't looking at me, but I knew the second he did I would want to be out the door and into the women's restroom down the hall.

"I can't," I said, my voice sounding like it was recorded on an old LP.

"Stop being a brat, Monroe," said Peace, and my knees slid out from under me with a light 'pop' of the joints. My butt hit the floor with a crash.

"Oh," said Dr. Kinthus, sounding more interested than concerned. "I didn't expect that."

"Ow," I replied. I had.

Peace looked a little confused. "Please tell me you told him," I said, and my voice was rough enough that Kinthus tossed me a bottle of water from a drawer in his desk. It slid through my sweaty fingers to catch me in the shoulder, but it was water and cool and I wasn't complaining.

"Of course I told him," said Kinthus. He sounded vaguely indignant.

"I mean _everything_, Dr. Kinthus."

"Everything?" echoed Peace. "What's going on, Kinthus?"

"I told him what I thought you would be comfortable with him knowing," replied Kinthus. "Much of what you told me I thought you wouldn't like me to share."

Okay, so Kinthus had me there.

"What did you say?" I asked. "As in, did you tell him the nature of the sensitivity? And I mean in terms he'll actually get."

Peace glared at me. I realized belatedly that it sounded as though I doubted his intelligence.

"Not that you're an idiot," I added quickly. "I just mean, terms familiar to non-PhDs."

"Of course," said Kinthus, which I took as a 'no'.

"Wonderful," I muttered. "This is going to be excruciating."

And it was. I tried to be as vague as possible, keeping to general facts and avoiding the word 'sex' as much as I could. The moment Peace's eyebrows narrowed and his ears flushed red, I knew he got it. I trailed off from my torturous explanation.

"So, er, yeah," I finished. "That's . . . about it." A second later my nose wrinkled from the smell of something burning, and I realized that Peace's hands, assembled in his lap, were smoking. Kinthus had no idea what was going on, but I had an inkling. Flameboy was pissed and itching to start lighting things up (probably starting with me). I unscrewed the top of the water bottle and tossed what remained of it into his lap.

The smoking stopped with a sizzle, and Peace shot me a look that would've meant hairy death in any language. He lifted his hands up and jerked them, shaking off the water onto Kinthus's expensive Persian. "You can't kill me in here," I told him. "You'll burn down Dr. Kinthus's office."

His hands burst into flame.

Three seconds later, I was safely ensconced in the women's bathroom, sitting on top of a toilet in the last stall. I put my head between my knees and tried to breathe deeply to keep from hyperventilating. Oh god, there had been something about his flames that had all but killed me. The coil in my navel had jerked upward, trying to pull me towards him. Luckily, my self-defense reflexes had been stronger. Next time – if there even was a next time – I couldn't be sure of the same results.

I wonder, now, if there's something about him being pyrokinetic that connects to the increase in the attraction. For a millisecond, in Kinthus's office, I had wanted more than to walk into Warren Peace's arms and wrap my body around his flaming hand.

Thus why I was hyperventilating.

A few minutes later, when I was still having trouble breathing but had calmed down minutely, there was a gentle knock on the door and the _tap-tap-tap_ of the heels of Dr. Kinthus's secretary. "Jenny?" she called, walking past the sink and halting outside the single stall. "Dr. Kinthus asks that you come back to his office. He says that Warren Peace promised not to hurt you." She sounded confused by her relayed message, but spoke it anyway.

"Please tell Dr. Kinthus I'll be out in a few minutes," I said through the locked stall door, and she went away.

I probably _should_ go back now. Every nerve in my body wants me to go back, and every nerve in my brain is screaming for me to climb into the ventilation shaft a la Tom Cruise and just vanish back into Maxville, where (hopefully) Warren Peace would never find me again.

Ah, well. We Monroes are supposed to be heroes, are we not? One, two, three, off I go.

* * *

_And . . . yeah. So Jenny not psychotic. Yay, skittles!_

_Right. Yeah. Thoughts?_


	4. In which girl tells lies for humanity

**Notes:** Thanks for the lovely reviews . . . makes a girl feel wanted and adored after a fairly scarring weekend in the care of her relatives, who mean well and love her but also make her feel like she was just run over by an eighteen-wheeler.

So thank you.

* * *

CHAPTER FOUR – In which girl (Jenny) tells lies for the good of humanity (College)

_Saturday, September 12th, 12 noon_

We broke for lunch and, although Kinthus didn't say it expressly, some "quiet time." I'm sitting in Moe's, chomping on my chips con queso, and god knows where Warren Peace is, although I think I saw him vanish into Mr. Wong's Egg Roll Palace.

On the bright side, Peace hasn't tried to kill me again today. On the not-so-bright side, he was probably too stunned by my Show and Tell to probably reach his boiling point. Kinthus, you see, not totally satisfied with my last bout of honesty (even though it almost had me barbequed), had me spend another twenty minutes outlining the usual symptoms.

"Erm," I said. "No offense, but does Peace need to be here for this?"

"No," said Peace, and stood up.

"Yes," said Kinthus, and pointed at his chair. He then turned to me, where I sat across from the door to his office, my chair positioned directly under the open window. Peace, Kinthus, and the monstrous mahogany desk were between me and the escape, which wasn't something I was comfortable with. "He does need to be here, especially if he's going to help us with delineation."

"Okay," I mumbled, picking under my nails. "What do you mean by usual?"

"Before you met Warren," explained Kinthus. He clicked on his tape recorder, and the buzz of its activation filled the room for at least half a minute before I started talking.

"At first, it's just warmth, all across my stomach and ribs. After a while, the warmth starts to curl in on itself, and becomes like this rope that just knots around my stomach and pulls it tight. My head starts to hurt. If I don't get out and away, there's pressure from inside, like my skin is too tight across my body. Like it wants to flip me inside out."

Kinthus looked intrigued, and I didn't dare look at Peace. "And now?" asked Kinthus.

I thought about lying.

"It hurts more," I said instead. "I'm squeezed tighter. And –" Here I paused. I wasn't sure that I was comfortable with Peace knowing all this. It felt too personal to be sharing with him and Kinthus as the tape recorder spun around and around on its little white dials.

"And?" prompted Kinthus.

"His voice," I squeaked, and stopped speaking. I could feel my face turn red, the bright, cherry color of a cooked lobster or nasty sunburn. "It makes my knees stop working," I finished in an unintelligible rush. After all, they already had first-hand knowledge of the more embarrassing side-effects of the hypersensitivity. I wasn't saying something they couldn't have inferred themselves.

But God, it was embarrassing.

"Ah," said Dr. Kinthus. "Is that all?" I nodded miserably, and he shut off the tape recorder. I hazarded a look at Peace, who was staring firmly at the name plate on Kinthus's desk. I waved a forlorn farewell to my first semester Bio grade. Communication was a general necessity between lab partners, and between us, Peace and I had the rapport of two dead pandas.

"I've been thinking," continued Kinthus. "And I think I'm going to talk to McNamara about declaring your grade dependent on an outside project. This one, specifically, although I'll remain vague about details. I have a feeling that sticking the two of your together at a lab table for two hours twice a week isn't going to help anybody. Is that all right with you?"

I nodded enthusiastically. Peace gave a curt nod, and resumed his blank expression.

Kinthus then decided to release us, a la brook trout, back into civilization. With strict orders to be back by one, we departed for sustenance. I let Peace go first deliberately, but he actually stood back and held the door open for me. The only person to ever do that for me was my father, so a polite 'thank you' popped out before I could stopper it.

Needless to say, I took the stairs.

_9 pm_

Am exhausted. Will write more tomorrow.

* * *

_Sunday, September 13th, 5:47 am_

Dr. Kinthus, had he not become a world-renowned geneticist, would have no doubt made a killing – no pun intended – in the evil sidekick industry. Because when Peace and I returned to his office after lunch yesterday, me at 12:45, Peace at 12:59, we found him standing by his desk, putting on his coat.

"Here," he said, tossing Peace a small box. "This is my daughter's. Play for two hours. Then come and find me in the lab. Jenny, your parents gave me access to your medical files, and I want to look over your childhood MRIs."

He departed. Kinthus didn't need to lock the door – we got the impression of being prisoners all by our little lonesomes.

"What is that?" I asked. When Peace grunted and threw the box at me, I scrambled to catch it. Written in pink across the top was the word QUIZ, complete with curlicues. I frowned and opened the box, spilling into my palm about an inch worth of small green index cards, the first few that I read typed with the sort of questions girls at slumber parties asked each other as the truth half of truth-or-dare.

In other words, Kinthus was ordering us to get to know one another.

I stared at my hand in horror. "He has to be joking." I was _not _going toask_ Warren Peace what his favorite brand of clothing was_.

"You're always complaining," said Peace, collapsing into his usual seat. "Why?"

Truth: I lack the initiative to do anything other than complain.

Lie: "I wasn't complaining. I was remarking on the fact that Dr. Kinthus appears to be on roofies. Have you looked at these?"

I split the deck in half and was putting them in his hand before I realized what I was doing. When my hand slid across his in the process, I could feel his hot fingers tightening around my wrist and pulling me forward, his lips cushioning the fall as his other hand tangled in my hair.

I banged my hip on the corner of Kinthus's desk and our hands slid apart. The pretty little picture in my brain melted away and I blinked rapidly a few times, trying to clear my vision. When I gathered enough courage to look at Peace, he was frowning at his hand.

"You're going to get wrinkles if you keep on doing that," I told him, my voice for once higher than usual.

"Do what?" he asked, frowning.

"Frown," I told him. "Like you are right now. All beware the terrifying pyrokinetic Warren Peace, plus wrinkles." I bit my lip to keep from laughing. He didn't seem terribly amused. I stole Kinthus's swivel chair and hoped that the desk would be a significant enough barrier to keep me from enacting the – what, daydream?

"You first," I told him. "Pick a question, any question."

Peace didn't look at the half of the deck in his hand as he asked, "Why do you talk so much?"

Truth: I babble when I'm nervous.

Lie: "You're just naturally reticent." I looked down at my half and picked a card at random. "What is your favorite—" I choked on air and stared at the card in shock. Weren't little girls supposed to use these to quiz their friends? What kind of question was this?

Peace watched me choke on my tongue. "Favorite what?" he finally prompted.

I turned pink, and then red.

Truth: Sexual position.

Lie: "Color!" I squeaked.

Peace blinked twice. "Red," he finally said. It was obvious I was lying, and it was just as obvious he was choosing, no doubt via pure Christian sentiment, to not call me on it.

I shoved the used card to the bottom of my pile and waited for him to speak. Once again, he didn't look at the pile of cards in his hand. "What were you thinking when you blacked out for a second there?"

Truth: Jumping his bones. Or, more accurately, him jumping mine.

Lie: "I got dizzy."

Taking a hint from him, I ditched my contaminated pile of non-Girl-Scout-friendly question cards and scrutinized him across the sea of mahogany. With his hair in his eyes and over his face, I couldn't see much to scrutinize.

Open window or not, I was sweating through my oversize tee-shirt, and the short ends of my hair that weren't pulled up stuck to the back of my neck. The pain was just gathering underneath my ribcage. I thanked God Almighty that he hadn't said my name yet, because I wasn't entire sure that if he did, Kinthus's desk would be sufficient deterrence.

"Why are you here?"

"You look a lot like Missy," he said, and seemed surprised the moment it left his mouth. So was I, seeing as how Missy and I don't look alike at all. For one thing, she's gorgeous. I'm . . . passable. Certainly not horrid, but certainly not Missy-level, either. If anything, people comment on how unalike we look for being twins. "Who's your mom?" he asked.

"Henrietta Monroe," I replied immediately, but I knew that wasn't what he wanted. "Penance," I corrected after a moment. "She's Penance."

There was an odd look on Peace's face as he considered it. I would've thought he would know – it's not like Missy keeps it a secret, but then again, no doubt they were too busy doing other things than sit down and talk about the Monroe family tree.

I had to physically shake my head to get rid of the image in my brain, of his warm fingers twisting into the short, sweat-soaked hairs stuck to my neck. When I hazarded a glance at him, he was still thinking and I forced myself to look away.

My mom and I have little in common, so maybe that was what was so thought-provoking. Then again, I don't fly around the country, inflicting the Seven Deadly Sins to a lethal degree, so I suppose the lack of common ground is understandable.

"Is that where—" he began, but stopped.

"The, ah, lust part comes from?" I finished for him. "Probably." I sneaked a peak. His ears, not hidden by the fall of his hair, turned pink. It was actually kind of cute.

Nngh. I can't believe I just wrote that Warren Peace's ears are cute. The man tried to _kill_ me yesterday.

Just as I was mentally commenting that his appendages are (_just a little, teensie bit_) cute, he looked up and caught me watching him. He shook his hair back almost nonchalantly and then we had a clear view of one another. I have no idea what he saw, other than a sweat-stained blonde with huge circles under her eyes. I wondered if he saw Missy in my lips, which were slightly parted and opening and closing, opening, closing, as I took deep breaths to balance out the pain in my ribs.

He must've seen something there, because I knew his eyes dropped to look at them for a moment before catching mine again. Warren Peace has very pretty eyes, and I found myself opening my mouth, ready with a Jenny-Monroe-Patented-Comment (always guaranteed to ruin the moment).

"Why did you break up with Missy?"

He obviously said, "She dumped me because I wouldn't screw her," before he thought about an answer, because he looked startled by his honesty.

Ouch.

It's a painful review of Missy, but not an untruthful one. It is the type of thing that Missy would do. She is not unwilling to be selfish, which sometimes can be a blessing and most of the time is annoying.

"Do you know who my father is?" he asked. I shook my head, because I don't, and Peace gave a rueful smile.

"Do I want to?" I asked, and he shook his head.

"He's a bit of a bastard," he said, and the corner of his mouth tilted upward for a second, as if he enjoyed being able to finally say something nasty about the man. "Well, not a _bit_ . . ."

I was pretty sure that I was missing some vital piece of information that would render the event clearer, but I glanced at the clock over Peace's head and realized that it was time to go and find Kinthus's lab. It was, thank god, only a flight of stairs below us. There were no windows and few doors. If Kinthus hadn't kicked Peace out, I might've ended up suffocating.

"Have fun?" asked Kinthus.

"_No_," I hissed, flushing. "What kind of cards were those?"

"Ones that provoked the response I was looking for," he replied, smiling slightly. "Warren didn't try to kill you again, did he?"

"Well, that's definitely a sign of a burgeoning friendship," I said. "Can we get this over with? I want to go back to my dorm and sleep."

The next hour came easily with Peace's absence. Dr. Kinthus reviewed my CAT scans and MRIs, muttering things and speaking in medicalese I didn't understand at all. He told me that he was appalled that I hadn't had a physical in two years. I have an appointment with a colleague of his on Monday at the local hospital for a full physical and a new series of MRIs.

Eventually he let me go and I happily scampered back to my dorm like a good little freshman with more homework than God.

Magenta and the redhead – Layla – were sitting in my empty dorm room when I entered. I really, really didn't want to talk to them. Layla looked sympathetic.

I didn't want her sympathy. She obviously thought I was mentally unstable.

Now Magenta – Magenta I wasn't sure about.

"Hey, Jenny," said Layla. "How are you?" She smiled at me comfortingly. I didn't feel comforted. I felt a bit like the orangutans must feel at the Think Tank in the National Zoo. I wanted to climb up onto a fifty foot platform and avoid humans for a while.

"A bit schizophrenic," I told her, smiling just as brightly. "You might want to leave before I venture into Charles Manson territory."

She took the threat in stride, no doubt from years spent in the company of Peace. "Mag and I were wondering if you wanted to have dinner with us," she said. "Mag" looked like she couldn't care less if I came or not.

"Thanks," I said. "But no thanks. I'm not hungry."

"Oh," said Layla, and her face fell. "Well, all right, I guess . . ." I sort of felt like I had just kicked a blind three-legged puppy, but not guilty enough to join into their girly-girl dinner plans.

"Have fun," I told her, and opened the door.

"Let me just get my purse," she said to Magenta, and she scampered out. Trying to ignore the Goth girl sitting on my roommate's bed, I opened the closet and pulled out my robe and shower basket.

"Did you start the Calc problems?" asked Magenta after a few seconds' worth of awkward silence. I hadn't even realized she was in my Calculus class. Then again, I had barely noticed anything during that class. I had been too excited about my conversation with Kinthus.

". . . problems?" I asked, wincing. "There were problems?"

Magenta snorted. "You can borrow my notes, if you want. It wasn't like you expected to be in class anyway."

Layla came back. She extended the dinner invitation again, I politely refused, and that was that. I have the impression that the three-line exchange was Magenta's way of telling me that she didn't think I was bonkers. If so, it was far more subtle than I would have given her credit for.

And nicer than I expected, I guess.

_9:10 am_

I can't believe it! If Kinthus expects me to just sit there in my bra and a pair of shorts, the man has another thing coming entirely.

Like a blow to the head, maybe?

_9:12 am_

Oh, a _sports_ bra. Well, gee, Kinthus, thanks for telling me to bring one ahead of time. I mean, I realize that I passed the pencil test and aren't exactly in dire need of support – but still! Some warning would've been nice.

_9:14 am_

I can't believe he's making me go back to my dorm for a piece of clothing _I don't actually own_ and feels no compunction about relating the whole sordid affair to an amused Warren Peace.

Men.

_9:32 am_

God, I love my sister and her extreme exercise regimen.

11 am

_Too. Hot._

Nnngh.

I'm so hot I feel like my limbs are wet noodles. My hair is being annoying and frizzy and the ends are coming undone from the hair tie and tickling my back below Missy's stupidly sleek sports bra, which looks like it should come with a stamp from the Federal Patent Office.

Peace's flames are _hot_. I mean, they are _blistering_. I feel like I have a sunburn from sitting in the same room as him. There are little white circles the size of a Snapple cap across my forehead and upper chest, surrounded by a sea of skin that's peachy pink. They're from Kinthus's stupid sensor-thingies. As a biology major, I should probably know the technical term, but my brain isn't functioning properly.

On the bright side, I was right about one thing. Kinthus is fairly certain that Peace being pyrokinetic is directly correlated to the increased . . . ahem, "attraction."

Shall we start at the beginning?

Kinthus spent the first half-hour testing my resting heartbeat (pathetically high – I'm not in shape _at all_) and active heartbeat (again, pathetically high).

Then he brought Peace into the observation booth, who was wearing a button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, exposing the flame tattoos. He looked tremendously bored walking in the door, which leads me to now wonder how exactly Kinthus got him to agree to be the independent variable in his little genetics experiment.

At the time, I was a little busy.

I doubt lacking the hypersensitivity would've made Kinthus briskly saying, "Take off your shirt, Jenny," any less excruciating. I couldn't even look at Peace as Kinthus wet the pads of the sensors and stuck them on, muttering to himself about controlled variables and such.

Kinthus settled me onto the gurney he'd helpfully provided for the exercise (made out of nonflammable material, whose purpose I would discover momentarily), and he stepped into the glass observing booth along with Peace.

I was _aware_ of Peace, but the suffocation was gone, the glass in the windows successfully preventing me from having a meltdown. I watched the pair with frank curiosity as Kinthus gestured. Peace occasionally gave a curt nod.

Then Kinthus sat down in front of his monitors, and I could suddenly hear his voice through the microphone in the observing booth.

"Lay down, Jenny," he said. "Close your eyes and take in deep, even breaths." I did as he asked.

"Warren, I want you to answer my questions by speaking clearly into the microphone." There was the crinkly shuffle of papers next to the microphone, and then Kinthus's voice was small and far away. "Where were you born?"

"Maxville Community Hospital."

"What is your mother's name?"

"Adrienne Peace."

"What is your father's name?"

"Maxwell Verne."

"Where did you go to high school?"

"Sky High, Maxville."

"When did you get those tattoos?"

"I was five."

"Why did you wait a year to start college?"

"I helped Stronghold and his sidekicks save the world. Again."

His voice curled up in my chest and burned, but I could stand it.

"Now," said Kinthus's distant voice, "please say the name of the girl in the next room."

"Jenny Monroe."

The fire in my chest exploded. I couldn't help whimpering a little.

"Tell her to breathe, Warren."

"Hey, Monroe. Breathe."

Breathing turned out to be a bit of an issue – enough of an issue that Kinthus declared himself satisfied and changed lanes.

Even before Kinthus opened the observation booth door to let Peace in with me, I knew I was in for a world of hurt. "For the Common Good," I told myself.

Of course, I am an abject coward. I settled for curling up on my gurney, knees to chest, and taking shallow breaths.

"Jenny," said Kinthus, standing in front of my gurney. "Jenny, you can say no, and we'll stop."

He had no idea how freaking tempting that was. I even opened my mouth to do it, to say no, but I bit my knee instead and shook my head. "Fine," I finally muttered. "I'm . . . fine."

Lies. Complete and utter lies.

"Warren's going to stand over there," said Kinthus. "And he won't do anything, I promise. He'll stand there."

And I, like an idiot, believed him.

For a while, Peace _did_ just stand there, leaning against the wall, arms folded. I looked at him once, but I had to turn away. I focused on a speck of mortar painted onto the cement wall and tried to center all of my attention on it. Minutes must have passed before Kinthus's voice crackled over the speaker.

"Now, please, Warren," he said.

I looked away from my speck in time to see Warren Peace's hands disappear under a roll of flames. It was instantly too hot, too painful in the room. I was standing before I knew it; I was talking two steps forward before my brain caught up and stopped the action.

My skin was blazing, not literally on fire, but the heat was blistering and crawling from head to toes, wrapping its tentacles both inside and outside. I wondered what it would feel like, to have Peace's hands skim across my skin with the flames trailing after him.

Frankly, it would hurt. But my brain had been turned off and shoved to the side, and wasn't exactly computing that.

The flames disappeared as I took another half-shuffle forward. Peace's face was hidden by his hair, and I couldn't tell what he was thinking as he took a half-turn and walked into the observation booth. Kinthus didn't try to stop him as he slammed the outside door shut behind him.

* * *

_Dr Richard Kinthus, everyone . . . a specialist in genetics and author of _How to Properly Torture the Already Severely Unstable Teenager Put into Your Medical Care_. _

_Thoughts?_


	5. In which girl meets the theorist

**Notes**: Once again, the general loves makes me feel all squishy. Seeing as how I know most of the _Sky High _fandom purists like their fics OC-free, the response to this is, honestly, absolutely lovely.

So thanks again!

* * *

CHAPTER FIVE - In which girl (Jenny) meets the theorist (Rolph)

_Monday, September 14th, 5:34 am_

Cannot stop dreaming about Peace. Note to self: look into procuring (il)legal sleep aids.

_7:00 am_

Kinthus's "doctor friend" is still missing. It's not like I even know who this person is, either; he just told me to go to the local hospital and tell the secretary my name.

Well, here I sit in this abysmally white waiting room . . . waiting, for lack of a better term. My shirt is sticking to my shoulder blades, but for once Peace's stifling presence isn't to blame. I have a _sunburn_ from Kinthus's wonderful little experiment yesterday. I am well aware that Kinthus is one of the most brilliant men in his field, and that he no doubt knows exactly what he's doing and how to go about doing it.

It's just . . . what? What the hell is going on? Flame tests? Heart rate sensors? Twenty questions? It's some of the most oddly organized experimentation I've ever seen. Shouldn't he have interviewed me more extensively, maybe started with some actual physical tests as a control group for his findings?

Maybe not ordered Warren Peace to _light me on fire_?

Okay. So Kinthus didn't tell him to physically set me alight. But, at the risk of sounding like a Nora Roberts character, Peace set my libido on fire. I cannot go through twenty minutes of inane activity without wanting to see him.

It's excruciating. I've had some bad experiences – Jimmy, ninth grade, comes to mind – but this by far takes the cake. Not only because he knows (almost every) sordid detail of the hypersensitivity, but because the poor man is forced to spend time in the company of the sweaty, slightly mental twin of his ex-girlfriend. And he knows that I want to jump him, and he's not interested.

I'm honestly surprised Kinthus got him to agree to this. Either Kinthus has something over him, or he's paying Peace. Because if I were in his position, you probably couldn't bribe/threaten/extort me into spending time testing the sexual inclinations of someone who I wouldn't consider touching romantically with a ten-foot pole.

At least, I'm assuming he's not interested in me romantically. Who would be? He dated Missy for Christ's sake. Talk about a downgrade.

Have I mentioned that this entire scenario has disaster written all over it? Because it does.

All I need for this to become a lovely Shakespearean comedy is Peace falling in love with Missy again. God, doesn't that sound like a movie? A really, really bad romantic comedy, maybe. My Life: starring Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman (as Peace and Missy). No one would willingly take the part of the pathetic twin.

That's really sad. A romantic comedy about my life and you probably couldn't find anyone to play me.

(Perhaps the twisted lump that always plays the pathetic friend of the lead in those Sandra Bullock comedies. But that's only if she's free.)

Right. Too depressing. I have to think positively: in a few months, this could all go away. Who knows? Kinthus says that he's bringing this physician friend of his (who is still MIA) and a fellow university biologist into the fold. Between the three of them he's fairly confident that they can solve this problem quickly.

Quickly? Ha. Not likely.

_7:12 am_

I _would_ like to take Biology eventually. Believe it or not, I was actually eagerly awaiting taking the damn class.

Eagerly. I swear.

_7:15 am_

Don't look at me like that. I _like _science.

_1:32 pm_

Kinthus's Physician Friend is named Adrienne Rolph. She seems pretty nice, not to mention completely gorgeous. Like Peace, she's got the thick-dark-hair-and-golden-skin thing going on. However, unlike Peace, she got the genes that force her to wash her hair more than occasionally and talk to us plebeians with some minor courtesy.

"Jenny?" she said, stretching out her hand. "I'm Dr. Rolph – Adrienne Rolph, actually. But Adrienne is fine. Dr. Kinthus sent you, correct?"

"Yep," I said, shaking her hand and standing.

"Nice to meet you," she said, and smiled. "Now, Dr. Kinthus sent me over your files, which I think we should discuss in my office." This was no doubt for the benefit of the secretary, who had stopped filing her nails and was looking at me with interest, as I was no longer just the random teenager sullying her waiting room. "For now, though, how are you enjoying the university? It's your first year?"

"Yeah," I replied, trailing after her. "I'm a freshman."

"Who do you have for Biology?" she asked, sounding like she actually cared.

"McNamara," I said. "Why?"

"Oh, Richard mentioned that you were interested in science," she said, waving her hand airily. "And he said that he was bringing a member of the biology department into this little project of his. I was wondering if you knew personally who he was asking."

"Erm, no."

"Julianne's lovely," continued Rolph. "She's also perfectly content to interrupt Richard whenever he goes off on one of those tangents of his. Oh, here we are." She waved to the door, which had ADRIENNE ROLPH, ENDOCRINOLOGY written on it in neat little letters.

Her office was masculine. A modernist desk with of glass and metal poles, two guest chairs in soft leather, and lots of bookshelves and framed diplomas were all arranged in the tiny space. The only picture frame in the entire room was on her desk, facing away from me.

"Take a seat," she suggested, moving past me to get to the file cabinets behind her desk.

"Thanks," I said cautiously, sitting down on the chairs. They were plushy and delightfully broken in. "Uh, shouldn't we be doing in this in an, um, exam room?" I asked.

"This is a special occasion," said Rolph, digging through her files. "We'll need to wait to use the MRI for a little while anyway, and I think I can do some basic questions in here without forcing you to get undressed. We'll move on in a bit." She gave a noise of triumph as she pulled a file out of her cabinet. "This'll help," she said, and she sat down behind her desk.

Seeing as how I was holding the photocopies of my medical file in my bag, I was confused as to the contents of the file she was currently perusing. Noting my interest, Rolph gave a secretive smile.

"This is the medical file of your test proctor," she said, grinning slightly. "I thought it might help shed some light on your current predicament. You and I can go through it once we're done with the physical itself."

Asking how she managed to get her hands on Warren Peace's medical records seemed like a question she wouldn't openly answer, so I didn't bother in the first place. I took out the photocopies Kinthus had given me the night before, after Peace's rather rapid departure, and handed them to her.

She gave it a quick glance-over, making a few humming noises in the back of her throat.

"Now," she began, folding her hands and looking at me frankly, "were this normal hospital operating procedure, I probably wouldn't even meet you until after a routine physical. However, there aren't that many – in fact, I'm pretty sure there are no – nurses that know the true identities of the heroes that come through these hospital doors.

"In Maxville, there are quite a few, but here there are only two doctors in this entire hospital that are authorized by the League to know identities. Those are the dean of medicine, Milla Marcus, who underwent hero training but never took to the field, and myself, because I am a practicing hero."

This was . . . unexpected. Usually heroes don't go into time-intensive fields like medicine, when all the hours are dictated by the needs of others. It's a bit hard to explain to the family of Joe Somebody that their beloved family member's bypass was rescheduled because Evil Genius #23 had kidnapped a bus full of school children.

That's why only sidekicks go on to become the doctors, lawyers, and policemen that interact with the non-talented population while still running defense and clean up for the heroes.

She smiled faintly, probably guessing which cogs in my brain were turning. "However, we're not here about me today. I just wanted you to understand why I will be running your tests and blood work all myself. That's also why your personal files are photocopies that will never see the light of day outside of this room. They are kept out of the hospital's computer database, so as to protect both you and your medical history." The end of her speech began to sound a bit rehearsed and robotic. It was clear that Rolph had said this more than once.

"Sounds cool," I said. I was mentally running through heroes in my brain, trying to figure out what her angle was. Her power would have to be applicable only in rare circumstances, or else she would never have time to devote to patients. Her office was cluttered with awards and diplomas, meaning that she had enough time to treat her patients very, very well.

"Before we begin, do you have any questions?" she asked.

Who are you and why do you have time to give me a full physical?

"Nope."

And with that, she proceeded with her medical duties. She weighed and measured me, poked, prodded, and admonished me when I told her that I rarely exercised. She also took scans of almost every inch of my body, focusing on my musculature, heart, and brain. She 'hmm'ed and 'ahh'ed a lot, as well as muttering quite a few "I see"s and "interesting"s.

In other words, she was just like any other doctor I'd ever visited.

In the end, we returned to her office and settled back into our chairs. She grabbed Peace's purported medical file off of her desk, and looked up at me frankly. "Jenny," she said, "you have a twin, don't you?"

"Er, yes," I said. "Missy – that is, Melissa."

"Does this happen to her as well?" asked Rolph, vaguely gesturing in my direction. I guessed that she meant the hypersensitivity.

"No," I said. "She freezes things." I made vague hand gestures of my own. "You know, like ice."

Rolph nodded as though this actually made sense. "And as for your mother – she has increased pheromone output that influences extreme emotion, correct?"

"If you mean she inflicts the Seven Deadly Sins, yeah," I said. "That's where we always figured the . . . er, lust part came from. Since my mom does it." Amongst other things.

Yes, my mother is Penance. Embarrassing, isn't it? Having wet dreams about my _mother_ is a right of passage for any teenage boy in the country. Of course, it's her fault for having a costume made out of red leather, and a giant black _SIN_ scrawled across her chest. But I digress.

"Not quite," replied Rolph, scribbling something on her yellow note pad. "Your mother affects others, while the hypersensitivity appears to affect only yourself. Of course, I'll need to examine Warren to know for sure, but that is my hypothesis."

"So where _did_ it come from?" I asked, not expecting an answer.

Rolph looked up from her pad. "I've met your sister, you know, and I have a theory as to why she is – forgive me for being frank – a very stunning girl, and yet you are the one that received the hypersensitivity."

Ouch. Well, at least she was being honest.

"Yes?" I prodded.

"I've talked to Richard and Julianne very briefly about this, and we are all under the impression that this was produced by a biological trigger of some sort. I know that you did not attend Sky High, so let me tell you that it's a small school, and it is the only organization in the world that aims to educate growing heroes." In other words, there weren't a lot of mini-powers. "At the risk of sounding egotistical, I have to tell you that the hero genome _is_ an evolutionary step, and as such needs to be spread."

She gave me a significant look.

"All differing strains need to reproduce to survive," she continued. "And we believe that you are a mechanism of reproductive potential. In other words, the hypersensitivity assures that you are almost violently attracted to the most powerful heroes. Of course, you cannot turn the sensitivity on and off, thus why you find yourself pulled to almost any man. But you mentioned earlier that your reaction to Warren was unusually strong – and for all that he is reticent and surly, Warren Peace is very, _very_ powerful."

She pulled her gaze away from mine and fiddled with her shiny ballpoint pen. "Of course," she finished, "this is just a working hypothesis. As we continue testing, we may find that the truth is quite different. But at the moment, we are operating under the assumption that you are not – as you put it earlier today – a genetic freak, but rather a necessary development for the hero genome."

After a pause, I said, "Wait – you mean, I'm attracted to guys so that I can continue the _species_?"

"Well," said Rolph. "Yes. Hypothetically."

It did, admittedly, explain my bizarrely extreme reaction to Warren Peace's flames (and his voice and his hair – when he washed it – and his eyes and his absolutely fantastic biceps). But at the same time – _I _was an evolutionary marvel? Jenny Monroe, who was criminally incapable of doing anything other than science properly?

"What does Missy's being gorgeous have to do with it?" I asked a second later, remembering.

Rolph looked suddenly uncomfortable. "Julianne believes that . . . well, perhaps, as with most twins, there was a bit of a mix up in gene coding . . ."

". . . and I was supposed to be the beautiful one?" I finished, feeling sick.

"More that you were both intended to be physically attractive, so as to supplement the hypersensitivity." Rolph winced and rubbed her temples a little. I could sympathize, I guess. Having to tell someone that she is unattractive by mistake rather than design isn't very fun.

"And there was a coding mix up," I said. "So originally, I was supposed to look like Missy?"

"All identical twins begin from the union of the same egg and sperm. In terms of traditional biology, you two should look extremely similar. The deviation indicates that perhaps the addition of the hypersensitivity created the dissimilarity between you and your sister."

"Lovely," I muttered under my breath.

Rolph gave a bit of a nervous twitch. "None of this means that you aren't attractive in your own right, Jenny . . ." she said, a little half-heartedly. I appreciated her effort, but held up a hand to stop her anyway.

"It's fine," I said. "Our dad always jokes that Missy got all the beauty and I got all the brains." Rolph winced. "Not tactful, sure. But probably true, although Missy's smart in her own way." And, unfortunately, I'm not ridiculously attractive in my own right, no matter what Rolph said to the contrary.

A little desperate to change the tone of the conversation, I switched back to our original topic. "How does your theory – if it's true, that is – explain my fall?"

"Fall?" asked Rolph. "What fall?"

"Er, the fall where I jumped out for a second-story window?" I hedged.

Rolph blinked twice. "You jumped out of a window?"

I rubbed the back of my neck, trying not to feel awkward. "My psychotic roommate locked me in a dorm room with Missy, Peace, and a bunch of other Maxville people. I couldn't breathe, so I sort of jumped out of the window . . . into some bushes . . ."

God, I sounded crazy. Again.

"And what happened?" asked Rolph, scribbling on her yellow pad again.

"I couldn't feel anything," I said, tampering down the frustration that was rising. It had been so perfectly great, for those few seconds . . . "And then Peace opened his big mouth and said something smart and it all came back."

Me? Bitter? _Never_.

"That," said Rolph, tapping her pen against her lip, "is extremely odd."

* * *

_And . . . yet another characters makes an appearance. I'm kind of curious as to where you guys think this is going. Options include: OMG-SQUEEEEness, in which Jenny jumps Peace (and he totally enjoys it); the TEH ANGST, in which Peace and Missy get back together and Jenny turns emo; and PWP, in which I pretend that the normal bounds of storyline and plot do not apply to me._

_XD._

_So. Thoughts on Rolph?_


	6. In which girl gets a life experience

**Notes**: ZOMG. The love. You guys, seriously, rock.

Also: Ben, Mariah, go away. I told you not to open this. Do not continue. Do not pass go. Do not collect 200.

(If your name happens to be Ben or Mariah and you have no idea what I'm talking about, please don't take offense. I have . . . interesting friends.)

* * *

CHAPTER SIX - In which girl (Jenny) gets a life experience (David)

_Monday, September 14th, 11:34 pm_

Never again. _Never again_, you hear me? That was just . . . oh my god, just _no_.

* * *

_Tuesday, September 15th, 5:32 am_

I went to find Magenta and ask for the notes from Calculus, only to find her and Day-Glo _inflagrante delecto_ – or close enough that it was still scarring for me, outside observer, to witness – in Audrey's dorm room.

"Erm, ew," I said, throwing my hands up over my eyes. "Hang a tie over the door knob, guys."

There was a suction sound like when Drano works on a stubborn sink, and then Magenta, voice annoyed and the tiniest bit embarrassed, demanded, "What are you doing here, Monroe?"

"Calculus," I squeaked.

There was some rustling as Magneta threw Zach's prone – and still fully dressed, thank God – form off of her bed and dug through her bag. "Here," she said, and something light connected with my head. "Go away, Monroe. And knock, next time."

"I _did_ knock," I insisted, opening my eyes and grabbing the papers without looking at the pair. "You were obviously too busy to notice."

"Er," said Zach.

I tried not to giggle, and failed (a little). I looked up in time to see Day-Glo turn a bright, garish red. It clashed with his hair.

Magenta snickered. "Just bring back my notes tomorrow. The problems are on the last page, in blue."

"Thanks," I said, and hightailed it out of there before I had a chance to see any more PDA. I also caught Layla as I was closing the door behind me. From the squeal of the bedsprings and a low laugh, I figured they didn't want to be disturbed.

"You, uh, don't want to go in there," I said, bodily blocking the door.

"Why not?" demanded Will, who was standing behind Layla, looking stalwart and very All-American.

"If you want to have your retinas scarred for life," I said, throwing up my hands and stepping aside, "be my guest. I was just saving you from having to watch Magenta and Day-Glo go at it." Layla's eyebrows twitched before she started giggling.

"Oh," said Will, looking put out. He was very obviously still convinced that I was evil. It would have been off-putting, except he struck me as the Overtly Heroic sort, and it was probably just a right of passage when one got to know him. I vaguely wondered how his first meeting with Peace had gone down, before giving myself a very hard mental slap for (once again) thinking about Peace.

"Yeah," I said, raising an eyebrow. "So, if you excuse me, I have some Calculus work to do . . ."

Layla didn't move. "Do you want to have dinner with us?" she asked. "Since Magenta and Zach are obviously busy."

Bluntly saying 'no' didn't seem to be much of an option, so I hedged. "Um," I said, considering. Obviously Layla wasn't the sort to just let go of new people, and since this was the second time she had asked me to eat with her in two days, I figured I might as well give in now and avoid later. Layla was a little . . . perky, for my tastes.

"Sure," I said, trying not to sound defeated.

We ended up at Mr. Wong's Egg Roll Palace, with Layla chattering delightedly about the Paper Lantern, back in Maxville, where she, Will, and Peace apparently had spent most of their time together. Upon hearing that I only ordered take out, and had never graced the interior of the Paper Lantern with my presence, Layla gave me a look that implied I had once daydreamed about drowning kittens.

"_Really_?" she asked, looking horrified. "Never?"

"Never," I said, stabbing a piece of Crab Rangoon with my chopstick. "I didn't get out much, back in Maxville."

"It explains why we never saw you before," said Layla, looking concerned. "Missy used to come with us to the Paper Lantern all the time, back when she was dating Warren. He was a waiter there, you know," she told me.

"Hm," I said, and dipped my head towards my plate so they couldn't see the flush rising in my cheeks. Oh my god, it was like puberty all over again . . .

"Yeah," continued Layla. "Missy always used to get an order of Crab Rangoon to go." She paused and looked at me as I stuffed a piece of fried crab and cheese – my fifth, actually – into my mouth. "Well, I guess we know why," she finished.

"Why didn't you go to Sky High?" asked Will. It was the second time he'd spoken that evening. Layla could be a bit overwhelming in large doses.

"Hypersensitivity," I said, tapping the side of my head with a chopstick. "Makes for hard interactions with the normal populace. My parents thought it would be better if I was homeschooled." I politely pretended not to notice when Layla and Will exchanged a Significant Glance.

"Hypersensitivity?" asked Layla, trying for casual, failing miserably.

"Just my power," I said, trying to nonchalantly sip green tea and burning my tongue. "Anyway, I doubt I missed much. Didn't villains keep on trying to take over the school?"

Will frowned. "Three times, actually," he said, and brightened as the waiter brought over our main dishes. We were silent as they were unloaded, and he continued once the man was gone. "Our freshman year, junior year, and senior year." He cheerfully dug into the lo mein. "It kind of sucked for Warren, because he had to skip college last year and come back and help us. Getting rid of that last one took forever, so he just decided to start over now."

Once again with the Peace – for god's sake, could they get through a meal without mentioning him? I clutched dripping section of sesame chicken and tried not to scowl. Or blush.

"Really?" I said with polite disinterest.

Layla didn't appear to be fooled. "You guys are lab partners, right?" she asked. "Why weren't either of you in Bio today?"

I choked on my chicken. I hadn't even known she was in my class. "You're in my class?" I asked.

"I have a friend who mentioned you were missing," she said.

"We're, ah, working on an independent project," I said, voice scratchy from the chicken. "Richard Kinthus is our advisor." This time, the green tea was soothing as I sipped it.

"Kinthus, the genetics specialist?" asked Layla, the same time Will said, "Kinthus the sidekick?" They looked at each other, then turned in unison on me. It was a little creepy.

"He needed help from heroes for one of his new, ah, studies," I said. "So he asked Peace and I to help. So we're helping. Him with his study. Yeah."

Were an award given out for Most Awkward Sentence of the Year, I would have won it then and there. I wasn't sure if Will and Layla were going to swallow that, but they seemed willing to do so.

"Oh," said Layla. "Well, as long as you get GER credit, that's cool."

"Definitely," I squeaked.

"Oh, hey," said Will suddenly, looking over my shoulder and waving with his chopsticks. "Speak of the devil, it's Warren. Warren!"

I shrunk into my seat, because I knew exactly what was going to happen. Will was going to invite Peace to sit with us. Peace was going to flatly refuse, Layla was going to soothe and blackmail him into joining us, and he would be forced to slide into the only seat in the booth – next to me.

I tried to keep from melting into the floor, but wasn't that successful. It seemed like hours before Peace finally meandered over to us. "Hey," he grunted, half-flicking his head at Will and Layla, and then minutely dragging his gaze to me. He looked away quickly.

"Sit," said Will, gesturing across the table to me. He was waiting for me to move over and let Peace sit next to me, but I was frozen still.

"No thanks," said Peace.

"Come on!" said Layla, almost bouncing in her seat. Her energy level was giving me a headache. "You _love_ sesame chicken, and I'm sure Jenny is willing to share." Jenny was not, in fact, willing to share her sesame chicken, which was yummy and smothered in sauce and basically perfection in the form of fried poultry.

I glowered at her. She didn't appear to notice.

"Move over," she said, gesturing. "Move over, Jenny."

Inching along the vinyl seat as though I was some sort of Mesozoic slime mold, I pushed myself against wall of the booth and tried not to breathe. Even though I wasn't looking at him, I could feel the moment Peace sat next to me.

I shrunk, if possible, even smaller.

"Jenny was telling us about your project with Kinthus," said Will immediately, returning to his lo mein. Peace half-froze next to me, before relaxing again.

"Really," he said.

"Yeah," said Layla, grabbing the plate of (MY) sesame chicken and shoveling some at him. "She told us that both of you are helping him with a study."

"Yes," said Peace finally, and I could feel his eyes through the veil of my hair between us. "A study."

I could feel him next to me, as though the space he took up in the air was outlined in neon fluorescent light and occasionally sending out sonic boom flashes. It was not pleasant at all, and I put down my chopsticks, feeling sick and smothered. Even my enjoyment of Mr. Wong's amazing sesame chicken was dampened.

They were still talking, but I wasn't paying any attention. I occasionally snuck peeks at Peace through the short veil that my hair made as it fell over my shoulder. Every time I did so, he was grunting some minute comment, chopsticks tapping against his lip as he contemplated the (PILFERED) chicken on his plate.

He didn't seem to be eating, either.

"– right, Jenny?" asked Layla.

"Er," I said, jumping in my seat. "Sorry, what?" My voice was breathy, and I had both arms clenched to my sides, elbows digging into my ribs. I was probably going to have bruises.

"Warren was just saying that his Macroeconomics class is boring," patiently explained Layla. "You're in that class, right?"

"Yes," I said, voice quiet. I had completely forgotten that we had another class together.

"Well?" she asked. At my blank look, she sighed. "Is it boring?" she asked.

"Oh!" I said, and tried to remember if I had actually processed anything last Tuesday. My memory persisted in showing me the image of myself, doodling inanely along the border of my notebook, a muscled arm with flame tattoos crawling up the sleeves. "It's kind of early to tell," I said.

"See!" said Layla triumphantly. "I _like_ Macro. It's interesting how everything works." She gestured with her chopsticks.

To my left, Warren Peace was tapping one of his own against his bottom lip, looking serious and solemn and very, very kissable as he drew the stick of wood across the healthy pout. I considered, for a brief second, what would happen if I took his bottom lip between my two teeth and bit it.

Hand trembling, I reached for my glass of ice water – it was sweating like I was, beads of perspiration tracing down the sides – and promptly knocked it over.

"Sorry," I said, voice shaking. "I'm really clumsy."

"No, no, it's fine," said Layla, piling napkins on top of the spill. She smiled at me almost sympathetically, and gestured for the waiter. He came over, head bobbing, and Warren rattled something off in a string of unknown syllables. I appeared to be the only one at the table – waiter included – who seemed to be surprised by this.

I considered asking the obvious – _you speak Chinese?_ – and then decided that knowing the answer wasn't worth the trouble of having to listen to his voice.

"I should go," I said, reaching for my bag, where it was crushing between my body and the wall. "I, er, have to go back, finish up that essay for Macro tomorrow" – _shit shit shit shit_, I thought as I riffled through my wallet, _I have a class with him in less than twelve hours_ – "and sleep, y'know." I triumphantly pulled a ten and some change out of my wallet and dropped it on a free, dry spot of the table.

Peace didn't call me on a distinct lack of a Macro essay due tomorrow, but he didn't appear to be in any hurry to let me out, either. I waited, counting to ten, before asking, my voice low and husky through no fault of my own, "Can you please move?"

"Hn," he said, and slid out of the booth. I propelled myself upwards and sideways, almost bowling over our returning waiter, who had a pile of napkins in his hands. He was chattering to Peace in Chinese, but Peace was looking at me instead of the short man, and he was saying something except I couldn't hear him because propelling had stuck me almost too close to him, his hand hovering somewhere near my elbow, almost as if he was steadying me, and in my mind I could hear Rolph talking about relative attractiveness and continuing the hero species and _for all that he is reticent and surly, Warren Peace is very,_ very_ powerful_.

"Nngh," I gurgled, and turned and ran.

_11:57 am_

Waking up late this morning and taking the long way to Westley Hall turned out to be one of my better choices – not only because I was just in time to get the really good coffee from the cart in front the library, minus the usual line, but because I got to Macro late enough that my seat from last week was taken and I was forced to sit in the back, far, far away from Warren Peace.

Funnily enough, I hadn't really noticed anyone else in my class. From the back, I could see that the professor's TA was alarmingly attractive, in the geeky, skinny sort of way that David Tennant is as the Tenth Doctor, and two seats down from the back was one of the longish haired jokers who had never failed to make my stomach turn itself inside out.

But rushing by the TA as I hurried to my seat, I barely noticed him. The joker's eyes had skimmed over me before dismissing my figure – obviously he had already met Missy, and was wondering if I was her – and I didn't feel a thing.

Which was, needless to say, Not Good. At all.

I actually paid attention to the professor, taking notes and jotting down figures and laughing as the joker made some poke at the perfect competition model, and found out that there was, in fact, an essay due next week, so Peace hadn't just been covering my ass.

Of course, thinking about him made me search him out. From the back, two tiers above, I could see the little whorl in the back of his head where the red began to spread. He was tapping the side of his desk with a pen, a one-two beat that I vaguely recognized. Once I noticed him, it was hard not to watch him, but the professor let the class out early and I purposely stayed behind, waiting everyone out.

It's empty now, thank god, and if I pack up my things and go I can be sure that Warren Peace won't be lurking outside in the halls, just waiting to corner me about last night. I'll have to see him Thursday, in the Bio lab time slot, and that's not going to be fun, but somehow I'll manage.

Wait – I'm not alone, the geeky/cute TA is here, he's down on the bottom shelving papers, although now he's looking up and noticing me and saying something –

_5 pm_

Well . . . that was interesting.

Geeky TA is actually named David – he made a joke about David Tennant, thank god, otherwise I probably would have done it myself, which would've sucked if he didn't watch the show – and he's an Economics major. He was obviously making an effort to be funny, something I recognized from spending time at malls with Missy, and just as obviously recognized me as Missy's sister, which was the only explanation I could come up with for why he would willingly spend time talking to someone who is neither attractive nor has any interest whatsoever in his future career.

"Let me guess," he said, looking up at me in the top row. "You're not an Economics major."

"Sorry?" I asked, confused.

"You _do_ realize that class is over, right?" he asked, grinning. "You can leave now, and everything."

"Oh, I know," I said. "I'm just, er, finishing up my notes. For my paper."

"Of course," he said, raising an eyebrow. "I'd believe that, except I've never seen anyone so engrossed in writing something about the four major types of business models – and I _am_ an Econ major."

"Guilty," I said, deciding that he was trying awfully hard and maybe I should throw him a bone. "I'm Jenny, by the way," I added, thinking that he probably thought I was Missy in the half-darkness at the top of the room.

"David," he said. "I think I've seen you before, outside of class."

"Probably not," I said, throwing my things into my bag. "My twin sister spends more time in this part of campus. You're thinking of her, I bet."

Missy does not, actually, spend a lot of time in that part of campus, because Missy despises Economics with the sort of passion heroes normally reserve for their mortal enemies. She's an art history major, and only spent one semester in this building, taking the required Economics course freshman year.

But still. I was giving him a way out.

"Are you two identical?" he asked as I carefully picked my way down the stairs.

"Not really," I hedged.

"Then it was definitely you," he said, smiling. I couldn't help smiling back. He _did_ look ridiculously like the Doctor, and I am a bit of a fan. "So, Jenny," he began slowly, putting papers in manila folders and manila folders into filing cabinets, "would you like to get a cup of coffee with me? Seeing as how you obviously aren't into Econ, it would be nice to talk to someone about something other than supply and demand."

I blinked twice.

"Er," I said, having read about this situation before but never experienced it myself. "Sure, I guess."

He beamed again. "Lovely," he said. "Let me just put this in George's office and then we can go?" He disappeared into the bowels of the building as I stood there, head tilted to the side, trying to figure out what exactly had happened. David the TA, who was probably not supposed to be fraternizing with students, invited me to go with him for a cup of coffee. Which, considering how he spun it, sounded suspiciously like a date.

Me. On a date.

And I couldn't feel a thing from him, which left me with two alternatives – either he was one suave character and had a girlfriend . . . or Warren Peace was having a worst effect on me than I thought.

When David bounced back into the room, all but shining with enthusiasm, and all I felt was tolerant amusement (and the suspicion that any moment he would begin to pry for information about Missy), I decided that it was definitely the latter.

"Shall we?" he asked.

"Sure," I said, hugging my bag. "I'm new to campus, so where do you recommend?"

"The Mudhouse," he said, guiding me to the door with a hand hovering near the small of my back. "Best coffee on campus, not to mention that I'm mildly addicted to their lemon poppy-seed cake."

"Not a very manly bread," I said, sort of caught up in the moment.

"I'm willing to admit it," he replied, grinning. "Besides, I prove myself manly in the classroom."

"I'll keep that in mind," I said, and realized a second later that what I was doing probably qualified as flirting. Ech. I know absolutely _nothing_ about flirting.

David, apparently, didn't seem to mind, since he was keeping up a steady conversation, and by the time we reached the Mudhouse, we'd jumped from _Doctor Who_ to the latest gossip inside the Econ department, and I was having – for the first time in my life – fun. With a guy.

Double ech.

He'd paid for the coffees and two slices of lemon poppy-seed cake when Missy finally came up in the conversation. I'd accepted her presence as an inevitability when it came to guys, but I couldn't help but be a little disappointed in him when he said, "So, you have a twin?"

"Yes," I said, a sinking feeling in my stomach. "Her name is Missy."

"What was that like?" he asked, leaning back in one of the armchairs we'd stolen. "You two aren't identical, right? So there was no _Parent Trap_ maneuverings?"

"No," I said, putting down my coffee. "We aren't alike at all."

"Sounds like my brother and I," he said.

And, to my surprise, the conversation moved onto his family and he did nothing to steer it back to my gorgeous sister. An hour later, somewhat disoriented, David and I checked the clock over the espresso machine and realized that we had other things to do.

He had been right about the poppy-seed cake, and he hadn't mentioned Missy other than that once, so when he grinned and said, "I have an idea – let's do this again," I agreed. Mostly out of surprise, true, and because I wasn't completely sure that he didn't have designs on Missy. But also because he'd been kind of charming, in a sweet, geeky kind of way, and he had the enthusiasm of a three-year-old on a sugar high.

"Cool," he said, as I handed him my hastily scribbled phone number on a scrap piece of paper. "I'll call you."

Then he disappeared.

In a bit of a confused daze, I returned to my dorm room to find it taken over by Olivia, Audrey, Layla, and Magenta. They were giggling and eating cheddar-flavored Bugles.

"Hey, Jenny," said Olivia, jumping off my bed. "Are you okay? You look a bit shell-shocked."

"I think," I said in a confused voice, "I just went on a date. With my Econ TA."

* * *

_Thank you all so much for the feedback concering where you want the story to go. Seeing as how it's currently clocked at about double this many chapters (no excuse for not updating, I know . . . throw rocks, bellow, curse me), I've already got what I want to do mostly in mind, but knowing what you think is really helpful._

_New question today: what do you think are David's motives?_

_As always, thoughts?_


	7. In which girl makes a Date

**Notes**: I _hate_ school. HATEHATEHATE.

Also - the love, people! You have no idea (well, maybe you do), but having a crappy day like mine where you fight with a friend and may or may not have a cold and then you come home and find all these great reviews sitting in your inbox? Yeah, best feeling in the world. So thanks.

* * *

CHAPTER SEVEN: In which girl (Jenny) makes a Date (David)

_Tuesday, September 15th, 7:32 pm_

In honor (they said) of my initiation into the sisterhood (of what, I have no idea, except Magenta snorted at this) Audrey, Olivia, Magenta, and Layla took me out to dinner.

By "out" I mean the cafeteria, and "dinner" I mean the hot meal of the day, which was pizza. But Olivia swiped her card for the pizza, Audrey got me a bottle of Diet Coke, and Magenta and Layla chipped in for a slice of heavily frosted carrot cake, so it was over all very nice of them.

"Let me get this straight," said Olivia, plunking down her tray and thrusting the plate of pepperoni in my general direction. "Your TA – who you never noticed before today, although apparently he wasn't returning the favor – asked you out for coffee and lemon poppy-seed cake at the Mudhouse?"

"Er," I said, not seeing what exactly she needed to get straight. "Yes. That's about it."

"Whew!" said Audrey, sitting next to her. "You certainly know how to do it in style, don't you, Jenny? A TA, your second week on campus?" She applauded. "Nicely done."

"So he's not allowed to date students?" I asked, picking off a slice of pepperoni. "I figured, but I wasn't sure and I didn't want to ask."

"It's fairly high up in the rule list," explained Layla.

"So good for you!" exclaimed Olivia, giving me a high five. I tentatively returned the gesture, not quite sure how helping David get fired was a good thing.

Magenta obviously noted my confusion. "Your first date," she explained, swilling some lemonade, "and it's already a forbidden relationship. They're just jealous."

I choked on my pepperoni. "Forbidden relationship? Am I in a Harlequin romance novel?"

"_To Love by Linear Stratagem_," declared Olivia, waving her hands in the air before her. "Sounds kinky, doesn't it?

"If only that had something to do with economics," said Audrey, grinning. "Otherwise it's perfect, Liv."

Olivia chuckled, and stabbed her rapidly congealing veal marsala. "I'm just glad you're over Peace, frankly," she said.

This time it was Layla who choked. "What?" she said.

"Oh my god, Liv," I groaned, thumping my head on the table. "I did not have the hots for Warren Peace. Please, just give it up." Blatant lie, to be sure. But still.

"Hey, you were gonna _leave_," said Olivia, pointing her fork at me. "If that's not the hots, I don't know what is."

"Then you need to work on your definition skills," I growled.

"Yeah, I can't really see Jenny having a crush on Peace," said Magenta. "She's not really the bad-boy type. I mean, I've seen this David guy. He's built like a beanpole and has the personality of a toddler."

I gave her a grateful look as I raised my head from the table, and she returned a quick smirk. Layla was giving me a considering look, opening her mouth, when Will's hand descended on her shoulder. "Hey," he said brightly. My stomach bent and wrung itself out, and I squawked when I saw, a second after my reaction, Warren Peace hovering at his shoulder. "Who's got the personality of a toddler?"

"Jenny's new boyfriend," said Magenta, gesturing at me. Peace's eyes widened fractionally before narrowing.

"He's not my boyfriend," I said, a little petulantly. "He's, ah . . ."

"He's her Econ TA," cackled Olivia. "Forbidden love in the classroom, anyone?"

I could feel my face begin to flush. At least two yards away from Peace, I could feel his presence in a way that I couldn't feel David's after more than an hour together. "We got coffee," I muttered.

"And you gave him your phone number," pointed out Audrey.

"And you talked for hours," added Layla.

"_An_ hour," I stressed. "As in one."

"I thought it was more than an hour," Magenta said, smirking again. "Didn't you just say more than an hour?"

"He bought you poppy-seed cake," said Audrey. "His _favorite_."

"Sign of devotion," chorused the other three girls, and I knew that my face was in the same color family as Layla's hair.

"Shut up," I said, and took a vicious bite of my pizza.

"Well, we're obviously not welcome," said Will, and leaned down to kiss Layla on the cheek. "Have fun," he said, and he saluted me. "Don't get him fired," he told me, and made to walk off. Peace – whose gaze I had been frantically avoiding – was standing still, eyes locked at me. I met them for a moment, and was terrified by how black and angry they were.

"See you Thursday," he said deliberately, and then followed Will.

"Oooh," cooed Olivia. "Did he look frustrated to you?"

"You don't think," began Audrey, and then stopped, turned, and watched the mismatched pair drop off their trays and leave the cafeteria. "_Seriously_?!"

"You two are psychotic," said Magenta. "Definitely not."

Layla tapping her fork against her teeth. "It's a possibility, I suppose," she said, eyes glazed as she considered.

"What's a possibility?" I asked, continuing to munch on my pizza. All three came back from Mars and turned in unison to give me disbelieving looks.

"You mean you didn't notice?" asked Olivia. "I mean, Peace was totally glowering once we mentioned Beansprout."

". . . since when is he _not_ glowering?" I asked, half-sarcastically. I knew exactly why Peace was glowering, and that was because he disapproved of me extending my loose-woman tentacles on the unsuspecting populace. How was he supposed to know that the hypersensitivity wasn't covering David, or really anyone other than Titus Andronicus himself that I came in contact with?

"Definitely upping the ante," continued Olivia over me. "I'm guessing that just about the time Jenny got over her little crush on Peace, he started noticing her . . ."

"Definitely _not_," I said. "Besides, he dated my sister. And without sounding self-pitying, who would want me after dating her?" I gestured my elbow in the direction of Missy, who was sitting with a group from the art college, laughing it up and delicately sipping spoonfuls of fat-free yogurt through her teeth.

"A valid point," said Magenta in the awkward silence that followed. She was the only one willing to own up to it. "Besides, Warren Peace is incapable of feeling anything other than revulsion or tolerance."

"Exactly," I said, and finished my pizza.

* * *

_Wednesday, September 16th, 11:14 am_

Have I mentioned lately that I love Wednesdays? No Peace whatsoever. It's lovely, really it is. Especially considering how I have a nasty feeling Kinthus is going to start commandeering my weekends.

Nngh.

_12:26 pm_

You know, Layla really is fantastic at worming her way into your life. I hadn't even noticed.

_1:24 pm_

It's actually kind of a boring day. No one's tried to kill me yet. It's almost anti-climatic.

_3:28 pm_

What's the rule on guys calling you, anyway? How many days in between does it have to be before it becomes obvious that they aren't interested?

_3:40 pm_

If David _was_ interested, he would've called by now, right?

_3:45 pm_

So does this mean he took me out for coffee and poppy-seed cake and conversation but _isn't_ interested? Does this mean he likes Missy now?

_3:48 pm_

I KNEW IT. I KNEW HE ONLY TOOK ME OUT FOR COFFEE BECAUSE HE WANTED MISSY.

_3:51 pm_

I hate men.

* * *

_Thursday, September 17th, 9:34 am_

I don't have a lot of time, because Peace is supposed to be here any second now (well, he was _supposed_ to be here four minutes ago, but whatever), but get this: Adrienne Rolph, Endocrinologist?

Yeah, she's actually Adrienne _Peace_-Rolph, Endocrinologist and MOTHER OF WARREN PEACE!!

Figures, doesn't it?

_12:11 pm_

So there I am, promptly at 9:30, minding my own business (of a sort, because I was also kind of listening at the door to what Kinthus's Inner Council was saying about me – but that's _my_ business, right?) and who should come up out of the staircase but Rolph, not even breathing heavily after taking four flights of stairs in some ridiculously high heels?

"Jenny," she said, smiling and walking towards me. "It's good to see you again. Are Richard and Julianne inside?"

I nodded, although I hadn't actually seen this mysterious Julianne, and Kinthus came out of his office as though he had heard us, shaking Rolph's hand and nodding and speaking rapidly in his odd way, and he said to me, "Jenny, you've met Adrienne, haven't you? She's our resident endocrinologist for this little project. She's also Warren Peace's mother, so these are ideal circumstances, aren't they?"

And before I could even respond to this, he whisked her inside and called out to me, "Keep an eye out for Warren and knock when he comes!"

Then he slammed the door shut.

Mind boggled by the recent revelation that not only do I have to spend time telling Warren Peace how sexually attracted to him, but also tell his _mother_, I kind of missed the sudden onset of stomach clenching and sweat glands erupting, because I was already having a minor panic attack.

"Monroe," he growled at me, and I jerked to attention.

"Er," I said, and he _was_ glowering, just like Olivia said, and I felt as though he was about to rip my head off. His hands were thrust into the pockets of his jeans, but I was pretty certain that he could have them out and flaming quickly if I made even a single wrong step. "Listen," I began, deciding to get it out of the way, "about David—"

Peace growled. And I mean, he literally growled at me, half-baring his teeth and looking scary and annoyed. Needless to say, I shut up.

Kinthus appeared and ushered us into his office, where he had graciously moved his desk out from under the window so I could sit there myself. When the door closed and clicked, all I could feel for a few moments was Peace's anger, as if I was underwater and everything was muffled. After a few seconds of meditative (or faux meditative, since I've never actually meditated a day in my life) breathing, I felt slightly better.

Well, not worse, certainly.

"Jenny," said Kinthus, "this is Julianne Kinthus, my wife, and professor of systems biology here at the university." His wife – really, what was with all of this keeping-it-in-the-family stuff? – was tiny and compact, with lots of wild grey hair just like her husband. She was also wearing an abnormally large pair of glasses.

"Ahh, Jennifer," she said, pushing back her glasses, which had lenses as thick as Coke bottles, "good to finally put a face to the name in your file." She blinked at me through her glasses. "Pardon me, Adrienne, but she certainly doesn't _look_ like the savior of the hero genome."

"What?" I squawked. "I'm not – that is, you can't just—"

"Savior?" echoed Peace, and then said something no doubt uncomplimentary under his breath.

"I didn't say she was the savior," explained Rolph, smiling faintly. "Just that any children she has will no doubt be very, very powerful heroes."

"Children?" I said faintly. "What?"

Had Peace not been too busy trying to stare a hole through my forehead, he probably would have been just as alarmed as I was. I stuttered, "Who, me? I'm not – it's just – wait, what?"

As if it had been waiting for the perfect moment, my phone rang. Loudly.

"Er," I said, and checked the caller ID. It wasn't a number I recognized, but definitely one from on campus. David, maybe . . .? "Can I take this?" I asked, and Kinthus gestured openly. I waited, but no one left, or made a path for me to the door.

They seriously didn't . . .

But apparently they did, so rather than stare them like an idiot, I answered.

Me: (_quietly_) Hello?

Caller: Hello? Jenny?

Me: (_normal voice_) Yeah.

Caller: It's David.

Me: (_smothering triumphant whoop_) Hi, David.

David: I, er, know that there are rules about how long you're supposed to wait before calling and all but I couldn't help it. I'm kind of rubbish at these things.

Me: I know absolutely nothing about rules for these things, so don't worry. I won't report you.

David: (_breathless laugh_) Good, good. Listen, there's this concert later tonight, a new band imported from Maxville, and they're supposed to be really great. I know that you're from there, so if you want to go . . . with . . . me . . . (_awkward pause_)

Me: (_turning for a millisecond and glaring right back at Peace; spoken deliberately_) You know what, David? I would absolutely _love_ to go with you to a concert tonight.

David: That's fantastic. It's downtown, at the Madison. I'll meet you there at eight?

Me: See you there.

David: Yeah, yeah. See you, Jenny.

I hung up my phone and turned back to look at Peace. His glare had intensified by at least twenty times its normal strength, and there was definite smoke coming from his clenched fists. "Monroe," he began.

"Oh, shut up," I snapped. Even anger couldn't keep my libido from tightening painfully at the sound of my name.

"He's a _TA_," he said, his eyebrows settling low over his eyes.

"He asked me to go to a _concert_," I hissed. "Grow _up_, I'm not going to jump him in the middle of the Madison."

For a moment, Peace's face blanked. "The Madison?"

"Not exactly a den of sin," I said.

"He asked you to a concert at the Madison?"

"Yes, Peace, he did." I eyed his fists, which were still tight, but definitely no longer smoking. "There was no reason for me to say no!"

That, as it turned out, was not the right thing to say. There were definite flames licking up his fingers. I had to wrap my hands around the arms of my chair to keep from launching myself at him. Even thinking about David didn't help, and my legs were melting apart and my fingers were slipping on the wood and my breathing was shallow and his flames were growing when Rolph calmly slapped him on the back of the head and said, "Warren, don't be a petulant child."

The flames died. My legs glued themselves together.

"Mom—"

"Shut up. I think this is good for Jenny," she said, and beamed at me. "Who's David?"

"Er," I said.

"He's her Economics TA," said Peace, whose glower had been slightly reduced by his mother inserting herself into our conversation.

"David Pierson?" said Julianne, pulling off her spectacles and cleaning them on the bottom of her shirt. "He's a nice boy – a little older than you, though, Jenny. About twenty-six, I think, getting his PhD in economic analysis."

Peace growled something that might've been twenty-six, or might've been something uncomplimentary about my knowing how to pick men.

"It's _fine_," I said, and turned to Kinthus. "I don't feel him. At all." I turned at the last second and saw Peace's face fall into confusion. Ha.

"Feel him?" asked Kinthus, propping his elbows on his knees and steepling his fingers. "As in, he has no effect on the hypersensitivity?"

"None," I declared with relish, "whatsoever."

"This is abnormal, correct?" asked Kinthus. I was about to answer with the affirmative before pausing and thinking about it.

"Well," I said, thinking about the joker in Macro, and the coffee boy at the cart in front of the library, and the people in the cafeteria, and then said, voice somewhat surprised, "Not really."

Kinthus's eyebrows disappeared. "Not really?" he echoed.

"Recently," I explained slowly, trying to think of the last time I'd suffered of the hypersensitivity with someone other than Peace, "I haven't been feeling anyone – well, other than, you know." I paused, bit my lip, and thought of the creepy man in the toll booth on the expressway from Maxville. He hadn't been the last, but he was certainly one of the final few. "I can't even remember the last time . . . You know, I didn't even notice it was tapering off, I guess because _Peace_" – here I stopped and gave him a glower of my own, although he was still looking slightly over my shoulder, confused – "keeps on popping up all over the place."

"You keep on hanging out with my friends," he said, but it lacked malice.

"No, I keep on getting kidnapped by Layla," I corrected. "She's like a freaking Christmas elf or something. It's like she's determined to be my friend."

Before Peace could give some kind of a witty rejoinder to this, Kinthus interrupted. "This is extremely interesting," he said, pursing his lips. "What do you think, Adrienne?"

Rolph's face was stoic, although from the way her lips were twitching, I guessed that she was holding back some kind of expression. "It fits with my hypothesis," she said neutrally. "Biology has declared Warren to be a fit father, and so the hypersensitivity is now entirely focused on him."

"Father?!" I squeaked. Peace had an odd look on his face – I interpreted it as nausea – but before I could get better look he reached up and propped his forehead on his hand. Rolph shrugged at my question.

"I must keep stressing that this is only a theory – and will continue to be a theory until we can test Warren's own reactions – but that is what I believe." She turned a little towards Julianne, and I saw that her lips were fighting a smile. She grinned quickly, an almost-smirk, and then swallowed it. "Might I suggest we break for lunch and meet here in an hour?"

I looked up at the clock, surprised at the time.

Peace was the first one out the door, rapidly followed by his mother, who gave me an almost maternal pat on the head as she left. Not hungry, I grabbed a banana from the coffee cart and retired to the green by the library, which is where I now sit. I sort of forgot about the banana, and now it's all ugly and brown from sitting in the sun, so I'm definitely not eating it now. Ew.

Crap, I have to get back, I'm late.

* * *

_Totally curious - what are your predictions for the date? Will David be harmless - or totally smokin'? Will he turn out to be a supervillain? Or option (d), all of the above?_

_General thoughts?_


	8. In which girl dances with fire

**Notes:** I realize that this is probably the last thing any of you want to hear, but because of NaNoWriMo, this is probably the last post I'll be able to have up during November.

So I'm really, _really_ sorry about that. If it makes you feel any better, this is probably my favorite chapter.

*dodges rotten fruit*

* * *

CHAPTER EIGHT: In which girl (Jenny) dances with fire (the Madison)

_Thursday, September 16th, 6:43 pm_

I've got a little break, because my hair is drying and Olivia and Audrey and Layla went off to do something to the silvery green dress that used to be Missy's – apparently they're looking for shoes, or something – and Magenta, my appointed guard, is writing a paper on her laptop.

When I stumbled, late and hungry, back to Kinthus's office, it was to find that Julianne, Kinthus, and Rolph were waiting. There was no sign of Peace, and I was grateful enough that I didn't pathetically beg Kinthus for food of some kind (at first; after about twenty seconds my stomach began to sound like the Berlin Philharmonic, and Kinthus tossed me a granola bar – one of those crappy ones they give away for free at the Whole Foods kiosk in the U because no one will buy them).

"Warren is downstairs," explained Kinthus, who was shoving his arms into a lab coat and scribbling something at the same time. "This afternoon is mostly about testing his reactions to you."

"Can you graph abject disgust?" I muttered under my breath. No one appeared to have heard.

I was, I have to admit, excited that for once Peace was going to be the lab rat and I would get to be the gloating, superior one. I've never been terribly good at glowering, but I was perfectly willing to relish the practice.

As I sat in the little glass booth, picking at my nails and thinking about whether my Sinestro Corps t-shirt would be deemed persona non grata at the Madison, Kinthus measured Peace's heart rate and blood pressure and numerous other little important things. Julianne and Rolph were puttering around with him, noting things on charts and whispering and looking important. Peace was, of course, in abominably good shape, and I had to put my head between my knees when he took his shirt off.

_Breathe_, I told myself. _It's just a guy. With his shirt off. And he's ridiculously attractive and gorgeous and has muscles of steel and you've always had a thing for biceps_._ But seriously, get a hold of yourself. Those who hyperventilate are not good at gloating_.

With this in mind, I took a few shallow breaths and picked my head up. When I peeked over the countertop into the outer room, Peace was looking directly at me, face inscrutable, as Kinthus prodded him with a little stainless steel tool. Rolph was advising them to do something, but without the sound system turned on I couldn't hear a thing. After a moment, Peace looked away.

Eventually, after sticking him with the sensors, the three scientists retired into the glass booth.

"First things first," said Kinthus, turning in his swivel chair to look at me. "How we're testing Warren is different from how we tested you," he explained. "Your hypersensitivity made it obvious when you had a physical reaction – I have a feeling that Warren's reactions will be far more subtle, if there are any at all."

"Hmm," I said, nodding.

"So, instead," said Kinthus, as Julianne began to tap on the computer, "we're going to have to test his reaction to you against his reaction to someone else he knows." There was a light tap on the door, and Rolph stood to answer it. "That's why," continued Kinthus, as Rolph opened the door and stood aside, "we asked your sister to come today."

My head fell with a _thunk_ onto the counter. "You do realize," I said, voice muffled, as Missy stepped into the room, "his reactions to her aren't going to be normal? At all?"

"Exactly," said Julianne, picking up the thread of conversation. "Who better to test against than an ex-girlfriend?"

I groaned.

"Jenny?" asked Missy, stepping forward. Rolph stopped her with a hand on the shoulder.

"Please stay in the doorway," she said, her voice cool. "He can't see you yet, before his heart rate stabilizes."

"Oh," said Missy, and she stepped back. I lifted my head to look at Rolph, who was just muffling a glower that would've made her son proud. I remembered a moment later that, as the mother of a Boy Toy, Rolph probably didn't like Missy very much.

"Hi, Missy," I said weakly.

Kinthus tapped a few buttons and then poked the microphone. "Warren," he said, and Peace, from where he sat, in all his shirtless glory, on the fireproof examining table, looked up. "We're ready, so just give us the thumbs up."

Peace's eyes flickered to where I was sitting, and I watched his heart rate bump on the screen before settling. Obviously he was still a little pissed about the David fiasco. "Please sit back where he can't see you," said Kinthus, poking me in the shoulder, and with a sigh I picked myself up off the chair and settled on the floor.

Half-underneath the counter, I could hear the tinny tick of the heart rate monitor above my head. I could see Kinthus and Julianne, and the feet of Rolph and my sister, and through the glass wall, most of the ceiling of the outer room.

"Melissa," said Kinthus, covering the microphone. "Please step over here." He uncovered it and leaned forward. "Warren, close your eyes."

A few seconds later, the glass door opened and Missy's feet disappeared.

"Open your eyes," said Kinthus, and then the heart rate monitor above my head, which had been continuing with a steady _tic tic tic tic_ that was fast but almost soothing in its metronome-like quality, picked up so quickly that I almost couldn't differentiate between beats.

"Hey, Warren," said Missy, her voice scratchy as it thrummed through the sound system. "Awfully hot, isn't it?"

The beeping was now just a blur of noise, and I wondered if Missy was doing something in particular, if Peace was going into cardiac arrest, and why everyone seemed to think that nothing was wrong. I knew enough about biology to know that _no one's_ heart should go that fast.

"Awfully . . . hot," she whispered, and there was a hiccup in the beats. I knew that she probably touched him then, drawn a finger down his chest, and I felt hot sympathy roll over me. Warren Peace may have been annoying and disapproving of my (burgeoning) relationship with David, and tried to kill me more than once, but even he didn't deserve having Missy mess with his heart.

Having been a lab rat myself just a week before, I understood. Missy was toying with him, in her own way, because even though my sister loves me and would willingly do this no matter who the guy was, she was enjoying having Warren Peace back under her thumb. He hadn't wanted to sleep with her and she had cut him loose and now, years later, he was back under her control and she was going to milk this opportunity to make up for whatever misdemeanor she thought he'd performed.

Poor, poor, poor Warren Peace.

It took me a few seconds to realize that I was crying.

"Stop," I said, but it was soft enough that no one heard me.

"Stop," I repeated, and stood and spoke loudly enough that inside the booth, Warren and Missy both turned to me, and I was right, her hand was on his chest, and he looked completely and utterly miserable. "Missy," I said, "stop being a bitch."

The heart rate monitor hiccupped once, then twice.

Missy frowned. "Jenny," she said, "these are your damn tests, shut up and let me do it." Warren's eyes were glazed, and he turned to look at her. I think that, for a little while, he hadn't even realized that this was part of the testing sequence. It hurt me, more than just the usual pain from the hypersensitivity, to know that.

"You're doing this because you want him back, not because you're helping me," I said, and her eyes narrowed and her beautiful mouth turned down in the corners. "You're being cruel, so just stop." My eyes were blurring and I couldn't really see anything more except two figures, one pale, one dark, bleeding together. Behind me, the heart rate monitor stopped. Not for long, but long enough.

"Missy, his stupid heart keeps on stopping. Get out of the damn room before you send him into cardiac arrest," I said. I don't know how much of it was intelligible, but apparently enough was that Missy took back her hand and turned on her heel and stalked out. She didn't pause in the booth, but continued out the door.

Miserable and guilty, I made to follow her.

"Wait," said Rolph, but she had to pause for a second and clear her throat. "Sit down, Jenny." Eyes streaming, I flopped backwards and half-stumbled into the empty chair. "Here." I took the tissues that she offered and blew my nose. I knew from experience that nothing was going to stop the tears other than time, so I stuck the wadded-up tissue under my nose and waited.

At some point, I heard a crash coming from inside the testing room, and I knew that Warren was probably destroying the purportedly fireproof examining table. In the silence of the glass booth, all I could hear was the incensed, racing noise from the heart rate monitor, which suddenly stopped.

Worried, I looked up and through the windows. The tears were drying, and through the film in my eyes I could see Warren, surrounded by the dying, melting plastic of the examining table, methodically tearing apart the very expensive medical sensors.

"No more tests," I croaked, looking away.

"Not today," agreed Kinthus, which wasn't what I meant, but I figured that was enough of a victory for me not to push it.

I sniffled for a while, and then Kinthus turned off the microphone and he and Julianne went into the testing room to talk to Warren. Rolph stayed behind, her hand very lightly settled on my head, until finally she said, "Thank you."

"For what?" I asked. "For letting my sister torture your son?"

"For stopping her," she said. "None of us probably would have. It's being a scientist, you know – one must always be an objective observer, and I told myself that he didn't need the interference." She pulled her hand from my head. "Warren, like his father, is somewhat indestructible. His heart is necessary, of course, but it always beats at a faster rate than most humans or heroes. It stopping for a little while wouldn't have killed him. I'm afraid that, knowing that, I forgot how he was after he and Missy broke up." She sighed.

"My sister can be a bitch," I said, since it was apparent she wouldn't.

"Yes," said Rolph, putting tact aside for the moment. "Yes, I'm afraid she can. Being beautiful does often give one some leeway." She smiled blandly. "Max was a bit like that." I must've looked confused, because she laughed lightly and looked over my shoulder. "Maxwell, my first husband. Warren's father. He was very terrifying, but beautiful the way Warren is. That gave him an advantage when he was a child, and he pursued it." She shrugged delicately. "Warren won't have that problem, of course, for all that everyone muttered he was going to become a villain."

I coughed, thinking of our first meeting with Dr. Kinthus, and how quickly his hands had burst into flame when he knew the truth about the hypersensitivity.

Rolph's smiled spread. "He has a temper, true. But he's not evil, not the way Max was. He's also quite defenseless when it comes to enticing women, which I think explains a great deal about his interactions with you and your twin."

"I don't look that much like Missy," I said.

"That," she said, looking through the glass window, "is not what I meant."

With that cryptic statement, she handed me another tissue and joined the party on the other side of the glass. Kinthus and Julianne, apparently having apologized enough for the incident, were talking animatedly. Curious, but not enough to actually join Warren Peace in a small room with no windows, I hit a few buttons on the console until the sound system squeaked to life.

"—of course your reaction was understandable," Kinthus was saying.

"_Understandable_?" asked Warren, eyebrows raised. "Remind me again why I agreed to this?"

"Because you're a hero at heart," said his mother promptly.

"And to see Missy, I suppose," added Julianne, "although I think we can all agree that we've seen quite enough of that girl to last us a lifetime." Kinthus coughed pointedly, and cleared his throat.

"At any rate, I think we got enough information of both reaction times," he said, obviously finishing whatever it was I had missed.

"Both?" I said aloud, and winced as they all turned to me. "Er, hello," I said, and waved. "What do you mean, both reactions, Dr. Kinthus?"

Were he an evil overlord, Kinthus would have no doubt cackled and rubbed his hands together. It was Julianne who replied, though. "Well, when you broke into the testing, of course."

"Oh," I said, confused. "Of course."

"Wait," began Warren. "You don't mean—"

"Yes," said Julianne, smiling brightly. "That explained everything."

"_What_ explained everything?" I asked, but no one answered.

"Do a real damn test," said Warren.

"We got our results," pointed out Julianne, trying to sound innocent but failing miserably.

"Doesn't count," growled Warren.

"I'm afraid it does," said Rolph, putting a hand on his bare shoulder. "In fact, it probably worked better than it would have in a sterilized situation."

"She was _crying_," said Warren, and then stopped abruptly. "Do another test," he finally said, voice firm and a little annoyed.

"Does anyone mind telling me what's going on?" I demanded. They ignored me, yet again, and sighing, I rolled my eyes and saw the clock, which was turning towards the late end of six o'clock. "Crap! Oi! People!" Kinthus turned, exasperated, and I mimed checking my watch. "I've got to go, okay? I need to get ready for tonight." Warren's face blanched, then turned purple.

Kinthus made a shooing motion with his hand. "Leave, but be back here Saturday, at 8," he said, and the remains of the medical sensors in Warren's fist crackled with electricity. Obviously he was still angry about David, despite the part where I very clearly explained that there was no risk in the situation.

"Bye," I said, and left.

_11:48 pm_

I told you, I _told you_ that Warren Peace was in an indie emo rock band, and you know what? I was _right_. Not only was I right, but I was _absurdly correct_. Because you know why Warren blanched when I mentioned the concert at the Madison, why he was so angry?

Because he was there, at the Madison. Playing in the damn concert.

And then – _then _– he acted like he was my _father_, which is even more absurd, especially because I thought he was supposed to be protecting poor, innocent Econ TA David from my womanly wiles or something. But no! Now apparently he's protecting ME from David! Me! As if David was _dangerous_. As if I have anything to be afraid of about David. As if _David _was the one who tried to kill me!

AAAARRRGGGHHH.

* * *

_Friday, September 17th, 9:57 am_

Screw Calculus, I'll just borrow Magenta's notes tomorrow.

Well, I think I've properly gotten across my anger and frustration over what happened last night – which was, by the way, going perfectly marvelous until Mr. I'm Too Emo For My Shirt came along – so now I suppose all that's missing is an explanation of what happened.

Wearing Missy's old dress, Audrey's high-heeled raffia sandals, and a pair of gigantic silver earrings borrowed from Magenta, I met David at the front of the Madison promptly at eight, as directed. Looking adorable and slightly nervous, he was waiting for me with a single bright daisy (my favorite flower, although I'd only mentioned it once in passing – it's that sweet?). After threading it through my stumpy braid, I gratefully took his arm and followed him inside.

According to the playlist, we had one more set with a pair of semi-techno, Stoic Nordic types before the band from Maxville – Party on the Hindenburg, or so claimed the set list – took the stage. David, who confessed himself to be something of a bad dancer, went off to get himself a beer and me a seltzer, and I settled into a dark corner.

However much I was trying to appear blasé and cool, I had never been to a bar before, let alone a place where people my age gathered to dance and drink, so I was trying to take it all in before David got back. Luckily, Rolph's theory about the hypersensitivity stayed throughout the evening. Jostled on my left by a half-drunk Brit and on my right by a slouched rocker with guyliner and a stud through his bottom lip, all I felt was nervous anticipation for the rest of the night.

No pressure. No clenching. No sex.

Just . . . Jenny. Nervous about her first date.

It was really, really, _really_ nice. Well, not the part where I felt like I was going to throw up because I had no idea what I was doing there. But other than that.

David returned eventually, hair tousled and jacket unbuttoned and slightly askew. I hadn't realized how much taller he was than me until we stood together, yelling over the dying strains of the Techno Twins, and he had to bend a lot of his upper body to even reach my ear.

It was fun, laughing at silly jokes and poking each other and mostly talking. I didn't feel any pressure to dance with him, even though I rather wanted to, and so we stayed on the outskirts, waiting for Party on the Hindenburg to load up and get ready.

When the heat started at my navel, I figured that it was attraction – _real_ attraction, for once in my life, for the first time, and I kind of welcomed it. But when the heat spread and tugged and dipped, I suddenly had the very awful realization that no, this was not for David.

"Do you, ah," I asked, voice dry and pained, "know who's in this band?"

David considered, then leaned and yelled, "Not really, but there's someone in it from your Macro class – he left behind the poster and I saw it and thought of you."

"Did he have, ah, black hair, with red streaks?" I asked, and hated myself for asking when the confusion spread on David's face.

"Yeah, sounds like Warren Peace," he said. "Why?"

"No . . . reason."

My voice died, as the lights dimmed and the crowd roared, and the lead singer stepped up to the microphone. Warren's presence made sure that I felt everything – every rushing pheromone out on the dance floor, every stray finger and lingering eye, every heady word that the singer (who was good, abominably, ridiculously good) crooned.

David's hand fell on my arm, and while the heat snapped and crunched, it wasn't as overwhelming as when Warren touched me. In that second, when my eyes flickered to the stage and I saw him, in a black dress shirt folded to his forearms, his fingertips kissing the keys of a piano, I made a decision.

"Dance with me!"

He protested as I grabbed him, but in the end, laughing at himself, he joined me on the dance floor. He was right about not being very good, but any skill I had was utterly defeated by the pressure inside my body, and he was just there, a tall man with nice hands and he was someone I could press against a bit, to relieve the pain.

For a few moments there – although, now that I think about it, it was longer, because a whole set passed by and the music stopped for a break – I was a bitch. Like Missy. I didn't care about David. I cared about myself.

And when the music stopped and I realized how thirsty and tired I was, David had a glazed, glassy look in his eyes, and when I took his hand and dragged him over to the bar for another seltzer, he seemed unable to let go. He kept on touching me – innocent touches, but across my shoulders and one hand on the small of my back, and my hand.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

I didn't even realize he was there until he spoke, a figure in black, glowering at David, with a sheen of sweat across his forehead. His hair had been pulled back, out of his face for the moment, although I knew he kept it down while he played. I knew, because I had watched him as I danced with David. Every song.

"Drinking a seltzer," I said. The pain was enough that I knew it couldn't get worse. I felt like every word he spoke was another fist in my chest, another jab of needle-fine ache.

"Are you _drunk_?" he demanded, and so quickly that I couldn't stop it, even though I half wanted to, half didn't, he grasped my chin and thrust my head back into the light, so he could see my eyes. David finally noticed when, underneath his hand, my entire body straightened and thrummed.

"Hey," he began, but Warren Peace was very carefully ignoring him.

"Did he get you drunk?" he asked, his finger tightening on my chin.

"No," I whispered.

"Your pupils are enormous," he said, and then brusquely stepped away from the bar. I hadn't realized he grabbed my wrist until he yanked me after him. David, still latched onto my other hand, followed like the caboose of a train. We made an odd picture, the three of us, except the lights were flashing enough that no one probably saw.

When Warren pulled me backstage and slammed the door shut, I could breathe again, although I was also painfully aware of how hot his fingers were on my wrist.

"What's going on?" asked David, his tousled hair standing on end. He'd lost his jacket, but he looked better without it anyway. "Peace?" His eyes narrowed and focused in the half-light. "Warren Peace? What's – do you two know each other?"

"Yeah, you could say that," growled Warren. "Now leave."

"What?"

David let go of my arm, stepped forward. Without his weight, I sort of floated closer to Warren, feeling like I was encased in glass, separate from everything. His fingers were anchoring me, drawing a line from my wrist through my veins.

"Leave," said Warren. "Take her home, right now."

"Why?" asked David, and he sounded a little bit petulant, although it might have been the odd filter through which I was hearing things. Warren's voice was a center, right now, exuding its own little gravitational force. I slid closer. "We're having fun."

A second later, he'd released my wrist so as to better wrap his hands into David's collar. "_You_ might have been having fun," he said, "but if she was having your kind of fun, I will fucking kill you."

"What?"

"Did you do anything?" he said, tightening his grip, and even though David was tall, Warren was just about his height and had muscle to balance it out, to lift him to his toes and cut air from his lungs. "Did you give her anything to explain why she's so out of it?"

"What?"

David's blank stare must have convinced him of something, because Warren released him abruptly and turned back to me. "Jenny," he said, and I gave a half-moan and melted a little, and he reached forward and grabbed me around the upper arm, "go home. Right now."

He shoved me towards David and I stumbled into my date, who was rubbing his throat and looking a fair bit more sober now. "Leave," Warren said, and pointed towards the back door with a finger that shook a little.

At the time, I was loopy enough that I was willing to follow what he said, and with David guiding me, we stepped out into the alleyway alongside the Madison. The cool air helped to clear my mind, enough so that after the first couple hundred feet, when I would occasionally stumble or stop moving when I remembered how close he was, his fingers on my chin, or the way he said my name, eventually I could think clearly.

When rational thought finally came to me, two buildings before my dorm, I stopped. "David," I began, trying not to sound as guilty as I felt, but he held up a hand.

"I don't know what that was," he said quietly, not looking at me, "why you were out of it or why Warren Peace, who's a bastard, felt the need to protect your honor, but I don't really want to know, either."

"Sometimes I get a little loopy. It's not my fault, there's something a little off about my frontal lobe – and it's not like I'm crazy or anything, just that close situations like that affect me more than normal people. And Warren knows about it, and he was just . . . worried," I finished weakly.

"He looked more than worried," said David, shoving his hands in his pockets. He'd left his jacket back at the Madison. "He looked pissed – really, really pissed."

Because David hadn't ever seen the truly incensed Warren Peace – the flammable one – I didn't quite take this at face value. "He was just—"

"In love with you," said David, and he sighed and turned and walked away before I could say anything to the contrary.

* * *

_All right, here's hoping this can bide you guys over until December. What do you think? Is (cue the dramatic theme music) David right and Peace is falling for Jenny? Is David clutched by jealousy and more than slightly delusional? Predictions as to how Jenny the Queen of Spazziness will react to this?_


	9. In which girl makes peace with boy

**Notes**: November is OVER. THANK GOD.

Also - thank you all so very, very much for being wonderfully cooperative with my NaNoWriMo drama. Your reward? Shirtless!Warren?

* * *

CHAPTER NINE: In which girl (Jenny) makes peace with boy (Warren)

_Friday, September 17th, 3 pm_

Olivia has been following me around all day, insisting on knowing what happened last night, but I don't know if I can tell her without her whirling around and letting it develop into Teh Drama. After the fourth time I blatantly turned to do something else in the midst of her . . . consultation . . . this morning, she left in a huff to grab Audrey and Layla and hasn't returned since. Magenta has offered her dorm room as an escape. She's on her bed right now, tapping away on her laptop and bobbing around to whatever is pounding loud and head-banging through her headphones.

There are no questions being asked.

It's really, really nice.

Especially because, on the walk back from Calculus, I kind of told her everything. Well, I started by asking her for her notes, and ended, trying to hold back tears, with David's odd declaration as he walked away from me. Even I, having never possessed a boyfriend, know that saying someone else is in love with your date is not a positive sign that you want to continue a relationship.

Magenta agreed.

"Maybe," she said, looking at me through her striped bangs as we crossed the green, "you should talk to Peace."

And that was the last thing she said to me on the matter. It's nice to know someone who isn't persistent in knowing all the details – although, considering how much detail I gave her when I told the original story, maybe she doesn't need to know that much more – or giving me inane advice. She told me what to do and now she's letting me do it.

Of course, how I'm _going_ to talk to him is another matter altogether. But I'll work through it in stages.

_3:14 pm_

Crap. Did Kinthus schedule another testing session for tomorrow morning?

_3:17 pm_

HE DID.

_3:19 pm_

I AM SO SCREWED.

_3:23 pm_

Well, at least I know I won't have to track him down, or anything. He will be, regrettably, perfectly available tomorrow.  


* * *

_Saturday, September 18th, 8:22 am_

He's not here.

And they want me to go find him.

Of course, the proper response is "Um, NO."

Unfortunately, no one – Rolph included – feels the need to accept this proper response. They want the improper response, which is, "Of course I will go and hunt down the temperamental pyrokinetic who I was recently informed be may potentially in love with me. You didn't even need to ask!"

So what do I get? I have little scrap of paper here – remarkably like the one that I scrawled my phone number on for David, in fact – that has his dorm and room number on it.

God hates me.

_10:03 am_

Well, I found Warren Peace, all right.

But before finding him, I had to wander around campus, desperately searching for his dorm building – which, by the way, is _not_ Reverend Hall, as referenced in my scribbled note, but rather _Quinley_ Hall, as it was renamed TWENTY YEARS AGO – not to mention attempting to badly flirt with three of his building mates before finding one (number four) that was gullible enough to actually let me in.

So up I went, to the fifth floor, number 17, which Warren apparently shares with a jock-type person named Gulliver, whose friends leave grape-scented Post-Its on the door, with messages like _Gullie, Thursday was divine, see you at Hope's – XXOXX, Lils_ and _GULLIVER – your mom called, left a bogus message about your lacrosse gear. Call her back. She left a number but I lost it_.

The mystery as to why these Post-Its were grape-scented was soon revealed when I stepped back and saw the little box with a neatly printed sign on top: _GULLIVER – grape, WARREN – apple_. There were no apple-scented Post-Its on the door, except for one that read _Warren, if you don't come to damn party Layla will kill me – Will_.

I knocked.

Gulliver answered.

"Dude," he said, eyes filmy, and then they widened and he took a half-step back. "Whoa. Chick."

"Yes," I said, trying to keep myself from poking him in the eye. "I am a girl. Marvel, please."

"I don't know you," he continued, rubbing his chin in what he probably considered to be an intelligent manner, "but Warren _never_ gets any girls that visit."

"Consider this a first," I said, and shouldered my way into the room.

"It's early," complained Gulliver, but I ignored him and made my way through the mess to the other side of the room. It was an almost drastic change, with clean floors and neat bookshelves stocked with most of the classics we read in freshman lit – Dickens, Shakespeare, Austen, and some Vonnegut. The ubiquitous _Titus Andronicus_ was on his desk.

And there was a Warren-shaped lump under the sheets on the bed.

Taking a deep breath – and regretting in a moment later, because apparently Gulliver had some sort of moral objection to clean laundry – I threw open the curtains above his bed and leaned as close as I dared.

"Warren," I said as loudly as I could under the circumstances, hoping that he slept with a shirt on. "Wake up."

There was no response.

"Dude," said Gulliver, hovering unhelpfully behind me. "He got totally wasted last night. Was completely wigging out about some chick." He narrowed his eyes at me. "Was it you?"

"Gulliver," I said, turning around and grabbing him by the elbow, "go visit Lils. Now. And don't bother coming back." I slammed the door shut in his surprised face, then quickly turned and opened the nearest window. I took in a few fortifying breaths of clean, then turned and pressed a hand to my stomach. I felt . . . okay, actually, and I wonder now if that's because he was asleep.

"Warren," I said loudly, still across the room. "Kinthus is waiting."

The blankets twitched minutely, and then ceased.

I debated my options. Option one: continue yelling with increased volume until he heard me and woke up. Option two: dump cold water on his head. Option three: jump him. NOW. Option four: pull off the blanket, and then reassess a plan of action.

Four it was. Sighing, I crossed the room again and grabbed the edge of the blanket closest to his head. I tensed, prepared to fling it off of him, when he twitched again and his hair slid through my fingers. It was soft and clean – despite its often greasy appearance – and I froze, rubbing my forefinger and thumb together for a second.

Then I realized what I was doing, hated myself, and tugged off the blanket.

The god that hated me was apparently on a roll, because Warren Peace – lying prone on his back, with one arm over his head and the other flung out across the bed, as though making space for something – was not wearing a shirt. And as I wheezed and threw myself backwards into the chaos of Gulliver's side of the room, one of Warren's eyes cracked open.

"Gulliver, you dickwad," he said, his voice so low I could feel it in the cartilage of my knees. "Close the window." He curled away from the wall, around that oddly outstretched arm, and tried to go back to sleep, before realizing what was missing. "Where's my blanket?" he asked blearily, and raised his head. I could see the way his eyes cleared as he followed the trailing end of his blanket across the floor and up into the air, where I clutched the other end against my chest.

"Jenny?" he said, and then flopped onto his back, pressing the heel of his palm into his eye sockets. I tried not to squeak, and settled for collapsing slowly onto the floor. "I am fucking hallucinating now," he muttered, and then arched his back as though stretching.

"Nngh," I whimpered. "Please stop."

He froze, then removed his hands and turned his head. "What," he asked slowly, voice raspy and deep and ohmygod it was only that stupid blanket that was keeping me from throwing myself across the room, "are you doing here?" He had apparently decided I was not, in fact, a hallucination.

Despite the fact that he was very obviously hung over – and I was only willing to accept what Gulliver insisted when it came with a side of evidence I could see with my own two eyes – he was still obscenely, ridiculously gorgeous. Even Missy doesn't look that good when she first wakes up. His eyes, ringed faintly with red, blinked twice.

"Er," I said a moment later, realizing that I was expected to answer this, "we have an appointment with Kinthus this morning. And when you didn't show, they sent me to find you."

"I hate my mother," he said, wincing as he pulled himself upright.

"Are you all right?" I asked, twisting the edge of the blanket between my fingers. "I mean, it's kind of obvious that you aren't, but I feel like I should ask anyway, and beside, can I get you something? I don't exactly have experience with this kind of thing, but—"

"Jenny," he said, "stop. Talking."

"Sorry," I squeaked.

"Yeah," he muttered finally, rubbing his hair so it fell in tangles around his lowered head. "How about a blow to the head?"

"Hey!" My grip tightened on the blanket as righteous indignation fought against blatant lust. "I was trying to help!"

"For me," he clarified.

"Oh," I said, looking down at my fingers, feeling a blush crawl up my chest and cheeks. The bed squealed as he stood, and my stomach coiled tighter and tighter, until he was standing right in front of me, half-blocking the light.

He had the blanket in one hand, and gave it a gentle tug. My hands automatically clenched, and then I consciously let go. "Hn," he grunted, and turned and walked back to the bed. I peeked through interlaced fingers just in time to get a prime view of the Warren Peace Boxer-Clad Ass, and I dropped my head down to my knees with solid _thump_.

"Sorry about my roommate," he said a few minutes later, after suspicious rustling and squeaks of drawers and rattling of pill bottles. I looked up to see him, jeans slung criminally low, tugging a t-shirt over his head. I cringed, and looked very carefully at my toes, encased as they were in a pair of bright green Converse. _Do not jump him do not jump him do not jump him . . ._

"We've been at school for two weeks," I said, trying desperately to ignore the piles of clothing slung around me. "How does he have this much dirty laundry?" Warren, who appeared to be fastening something around his neck, paused and looked around.

"I have no idea," he finally said, smirking, and whatever he'd been fastening he slipped lightning-quick under his shirt. On the front, stretched tight over what I now knew was an absolutely _stunning_ set of abdominal muscles, was an enormous cartoon drum set, with PARTY ON THE HINDENBURG and a toy blimp printed across the front of the bass drum.

Slightly relaxed – and shifted so as to be situated strategically under an open window – I watched him putter domestically around his room, shoving things like Shakespeare and a notebook and some pens into his man-purse, before he grabbed a beat-up leather jacket from the desk chair and stopped by my feet. "Come on," he said, and extended a hand to help me up.

I tried not to look at it as though it was going to bite me. I think I failed.

He sighed, and withdrew his hand. "Right," he said. "Of course. Come on, Monroe, we don't want to keep the scientists waiting."

Too afraid to touch Gulliver's bedside table, I used the windowsill to clamber to my feet. When Warren threw open the door, it revealed a confused-looking Gulliver, whose hand was raised as though he was about to knock.

"Dude," he said. "What were you _doing_ in there with that chick?"

I briefly considered kicking him. "I'm not a chick," I said, following Warren as closely as I dared. "Have you seriously been standing at this doorway the entire time? Do you actually have a brain, or just a circuit board?"

Gulliver blinked. "Dude," he began.

"See you, Gullie," said Warren, and shoved his arms into the leather jacket, the strap to his man-purse between his teeth. I tottered after him, not breathing, sort of hoping that he'd remember to take the stairs. To my infinite surprise, he did. The last thing I saw as the metal door clanged shut behind me was Gulliver's slack-jawed countenance, blinking after us.

Warren was characteristically silent as we walked across campus – and while I appreciated the ability to properly use my neurons, it gave me far too much to think about. Like, for example, David's parting shot.

Looking at Warren's shoulder rise and fall as he shuffled, about a foot in front of me, down the walkway through the green, I considered the situation through David's eyes. Admittedly, some of what Warren did was a little possessive and weird (like, oh, I don't know, threatening to _kill_ him, maybe), but having known the pyrokinetic a little longer, I knew this was common behavior.

As for the apparent possessiveness; well, that morning, I'd done Warren a favor by sending my sister packing. Maybe he was repaying by protecting me from a guy who he obviously did not trust; or, protecting David from me in my I've-Been-Messing-Around-With-Roofies post-Warren high.

Either way, I figure, Warren Peace is most definitely _not_ in love with me.

We had made it to the part of the green in front of the library, and it took me a half-dozen steps and a few seconds to realize that Warren had stopped. I turned, confused, and watched him pull a wallet out of his back pocket. "You need caffeine, Monroe?" he asked, and looked at me. Behind him, the coffee boy noticed me and waved.

"Sure," I said, and waved back.

"Hey Jenny," said Coffee Boy once I (relatively) returned to Warren's side. "The usual?"

"Sure," I said, a little shocked to realize that I even _had_ a usual. Contemplating this, I almost missed the look Warren gave me over his open wallet. Whatever it was, I was too slow to capture it fully.

"Double espresso," he growled at Coffee Boy, who was momentarily taken aback by the apparent aggression, before rapidly recovering.

"Sure!" he said. "So what are you doing out so early?"

I waited for Warren to answer him, before understanding it was me he was addressing. "Oh! I'm, uh, that is, _we're_ helping Dr. Kinthus. With a study."

Coffee Boy handed me a blueberry muffin perched precariously on top of a tiny mocha. "Here you go, white chocolate skim," he said cheerily. "That sounds cool!"

"Yep," I said, opening the lid and carefully blowing on the foam at the top. "Sure is."

"Here," said Coffee Boy, sliding another cup across the counter to Warren. "That'll be $5.12," he said briskly.

I was reaching for my purse when Warren slammed a fistful of bills and change onto the counter and said, "Bye," in a borderline nasty voice. Coffee Boy looked shocked, before narrowing his eyes.

"Bye, Jenny!" he said. "See you on Monday!"

"See you," I parroted, and found myself once again following Warren's hunched shoulders. "Oi, Warren, slow down or else I won't give you any of my muffin," I huffed, juggling breakfast food and liquid caffeine. He jerked to a stop quickly, and shot an inscrutable look over his shoulder. Apparently the man had something against muffins.

"What?" I asked, stuffing a section of the pastry into my mouth. "You gonna lie and say you don't want any?"

"Why did—" he began, and then stopped and shook his head. "Fine. Give me some muffin, Monroe."

"Maybe," I said, peeling the wrapping away from the muffin, and I shimmied out of the reach of his arm and stuck out my tongue. "Why were you being so nasty to Coffee Boy?"

"Coffee Boy?" said Warren, his eyebrows rising to a perpendicular angle in the middle of his forehead. He walked after me. "You mean you don't know his name?"

"Weird, right?" I asked, sipping some mocha. "He asked me for mine, but didn't tell me his."

"Weird," agreed Warren, biting his lip for a second.

"So?" I prodded after a few seconds silence.

"So, what?"

"So, why were you nasty to Coffee Boy?"

"I'm just a nasty person," he said, and eyed my muffin. "Were you serious about sharing that?"

"Of course!" I said, carving a chunk with my fingertips and holding it out. "You paid for it, so technically speaking it's yours."

"That," he said, grinning, "is not how it works."

"That's what makes sense," I said, and pushed my hand towards him. "Well, do you want some or not?" He paused for a second, before reaching out and picking it out of my hand. For a second his fingers scratched my palm as he gathered all the crumbs, and my throat went abruptly dry. Every feeling I'd been pushing away for the past half hour swarmed over me as he tilted his head back, lifted the muffin, and dropped it into his mouth.

He then licked his fingers.

I dropped my mocha.

"Monroe?" he said, bringing his head back down. "Are you all right?"

"Nngh," I said, and yanked my eyes from the speck of blueberry on the corner of his lips. "Fine," I said, voice higher than usual. "It slipped – really hot, you know." I remembered who I was talking to. "Or, erm, not."

"Hmm," he said, eyeing me suspiciously. "Sure."

We made it to Kinthus's building in half-companionable, half-tensioned silence, and found the scientists, cranky like toddlers, huddled around Kinthus's desk.

"Where have you been?" asked Rolph, watching me scarf down the rest of my muffin.

I decided not to mention the hangover. "Have you met his roommate? He's a freaking Neanderthal. Insisted on calling me 'dude' and 'chick'." I shaped the wrapping into a ball and then dropped it into Kinthus's waste basket. "Then Warren bought me breakfast."

"Did _Warren_?" asked Rolph, who leaned across and wiped the annoying piece of blueberry from the corner of his mouth, the smudge I'd been avoiding with solid determination ever since its unorthodox appearance. She showed her thumb to Warren, who frowned at her, before wiping it on a tissue. "How nice of him."

"Yeah," I said, and everyone seemed to know something that I was completely unaware of. "I guess . . ."

"How is David?" asked Julianne suddenly, and the Tension-o-Meter in the room went into the double digits. I tried not to look guilty as every pair of eyes in the room locked on me. They seemed abnormally interested in my answer.

"Er, not seeing me anymore," I said, and fought down an angry blush.

"Wait – what?" said Warren in the silence that followed.

"He's, er, not interested. Anymore," I said. I tried very hard not to think of his tall, skinny figure stalking away, voice angry and resigned as he said, _in love with you_. I coughed.

"Really," said Warren.

"Why is that?" asked Rolph. She was smothering a smile, I knew it. Was everyone in this room against me having a relationship with David, then?

I frowned. What was _wrong_ with David? He was sweet and cute and kind of like a giant, skinny teddy bear. Not to mention he didn't have an obsession with lighting things on fire, which definitely put him ahead in the current market. "Warren scared him off," I said suddenly, and a second later regretted it as the attention in the room swiveled to him. Scowling, he tugged off his leather jacket and slung it over his usual chair.

"If I scared him off, it's because he was pathetic," he said, not sounding terribly reassuring.

"You threatened to kill him," I pointed out.

"I said I would kill him _if_ he had gotten you drunk. Which he hadn't, therefore making the entire threat nonviable."

Rolph's eyebrows had disappeared under her bangs. "Warren, dear, you don't go around threatening people's boyfriends."

"He wasn't her boyfriend," he replied, scowl deepening. "And you should have seen her. Her pupils were like dinner plates."

"Gee," I said, narrowing my eyes. "I wonder why. It couldn't have possibly been because you were suddenly all touchy-feely, could it?"

"Touchy-feely?" echoed Warren, his ears turning pink. "I wasn't _touch-feely_—"

"You appear out of nowhere," I said, listing off on my fingers, "grab my chin, yank me backstage, accuse me of being intoxicated, threaten my boyfriend, and then kick us out of the Madison."

"He's not your _boyfriend_, Monroe, you went on one date, it doesn't work that way."

"Shut up! He left me in the middle of the freaking green because of what you did!" Angry tears were pooling in the corner of my eyes, and I blinked them back.

"What did Warren do?" asked Rolph gently.

"I didn't _do—_" bit off Warren angrily.

"You tried to choke him! And you accused him of getting me drunk, and then he accused _me_ of – of – of," I hiccupped.

"Of what?" asked Warren, voice suddenly quiet and low and about thirteen times more dangerous than it had been a second ago. Remembering how easily his hands fit around David's collar, I swallowed my immediate reply (which to tell him the truth).

"Never mind," I said bitterly.

And with that witty rejoinder, I fled Kinthus's office, a la startled fawn, to my usual bathroom stall. It's been a while and no one has come to find me, so I think that I'm not being terribly missed at the moment. No doubt Kinthus's secretary is skulking in the hall, though, so maybe I should wait for a little bit before I leave.

_10:43 am_

He made me _cry_. I hate him. I hate crying.

_10:45 am_

He made me cry TWICE. In less than twenty-four hours, no less! God, I really do hate him. I hope he gets eaten by spiders, or Coffee Boy and his alley gang beat him up or something.

And talk about strange behavior – who growls at the Coffee Boy? He gives people free coffee if they answer his random trivia of the day correctly! He's lovable, like a squishy stress ball! It's impossible to hate the Coffee Boy!

And yet, of course, Warren Peace manages it . . .

_10:50 am_

I thought that we were managing to get along, for once. I thought he was willing to have an actually _conversation_. With normalcy and everything.

Obviously I was wrong.  


* * *

_And the endless drama continues . . . poor, hungover Warren. I wonder what drove him to distraction, eh? So do you think the truce should continue, or should Warren and Jenny go back to hating each other, because it's more fun that way? Is David really out of the picture?_

_Thoughts?  
_


	10. In which girl does something stupid

**Notes**: You guys are, most seriously, absolutely lovely people. Thank you for the reviews! Feedback makes ze vurld go vound . . . especially when I'm fairly confident that you're all going to hate me by the end of this chapter.

* * *

CHAPTER TEN – In which girl (Jenny) does something stupid

_Saturday, September 18th, 11:12 am_

My only excuse is that it's his fault for laying siege to the women's bathroom down the hall from Kinthus's office.

(OhgodwhatdidIjustdo)

(I'manidiot)

I just finished writing that last sentence ("Obviously I was wrong.") – and was debating whether or not to sic Olivia's Rottweiler back home on Warren – when I heard a knock on the outside door. I maneuvered a little bit inside my stall, and it was enough to hear a muffled, "Monroe, stop sulking and get out of the damn bathroom."

Warren, of course. And I was _not_ sulking.

"I'm not sulking!" I yelled. "Kindly go away."

Then there was a slam, a crash, and the feeling of claustrophobia swept over me – but ten times worse – and I almost fell into the toilet. I couldn't breath. The women's bathroom in the Biology building is actually a stall and a sink, and it was probably just a little bit smaller than the glass observation booth down in the lab.

But with no windows, one door, and a ventilation system that was probably updated when Nixon was president. Thank god Warren was making all that noise stepping inside, because I definitely didn't want to hear him remark on my breathlessness.

"Last time I checked, this was a women's bathroom," I tried to say, and failed to get out anything other than a shuddered wheeze. Even with the damn (locked) stall door between us, I knew exactly where he was, how his body was moving through the room.

"You've had an hour," he said, "to do whatever it is that you're doing in there, so get your ass out and back into Kinthus's office. The scientists want to tell us something."

"Go away," I said, fisting my hands and pushing my fingernails into my palms. Sitting as I was, there was absolutely nothing keeping me from unlocking the door and sliding next to him and putting my hand

"What did he say to you?" he asked abruptly, and there was a _thump_, like he dropped his head against the stall door. The little paltry plastic walls shook and reminded me that they were easy to get through, easy to get around.

"Nothing important," I said in a half-whisper, more because I couldn't get enough breath to speak than because I didn't want to say it. A paltry half-truth, true, but I considered it necessary for David's continual health. Why did he _care_, besides? David was free from my nefarious clutches, wasn't he? Wasn't that the important bit?

There was a second _thump_, and the rickety stall set-up trembled.

"Stop lying," he said. I could see the tips of his feet from where I was sitting. Black Converse, but dirty and old. Very Warren-like shoes, actually. They were peeking out from behind the slightly ratty hem of his dark jeans (and suddenly I could remember with remarkable clarity the image of him pulling his shirt over his head, jeans low on narrow hips). "It upset you," he said, and it took me a second to clear my mind enough to understand him.

"He just, ah," I said, paused and cleared my throat, "wanted to know why you were so concerned." It was the truth, but not really, and the silence stretched on and on and on and on and wait, he shuffled his Converse a little.

"What did you tell him?" he asked, and his voice was hoarser than usual. I had stood up and was pressing my palms against the door before I realized what I was doing. I stopped myself there.

"Ah," I said, stalling for time. "Ah, he, um, left before I could answer."

_Leave_, I was prodding him mentally, _leave before I do something really, really stupid_.

"Oh," said Warren, and I fell forward, letting my body push against the stall door.

"Why were you so concerned?" I asked.

The silence went on, but he never answered.

Then, finally, all he said was, "The scientists need to see us."

"Why were you so concerned?" I asked, fingertips on the little silver-colored knob that I could flick in a second and be out there, next to him, pressed to him.

"Get out of the stall, Jenny," he said, and even though a little bit of my brain was telling me that that was a very, very bad idea, the rest of it was all too happy to oblige, and in a half-second my fingers had flicked the latch and opened the door and he hadn't moved from where he was standing, with a hand on either side of the door, leaning forward with his head drooped down.

"Why?" I asked, and he was so very close that his head almost fell on my shoulder, and I reached out and very lightly touched the cartoon blimp on his t-shirt, and he didn't say anything except to lift his head up, and the muscles in his neck bunched and stretched very tightly, as if he was making a great effort to do something – or, I suppose, not to do something – and my other hand, fascinated by that, was tracing the line of his throat in a millisecond.

"Why?" I asked, and electricity was flooding through my fingertips.

"Why?" I asked, and his breathing, unsteady and loud, was right next to my ear.

"Why?" I asked, and I leaned forward just enough that I could put my lips on the jumping pulse under his ear.

It felt wonderful – his racing blood under my lips, the skin soft and smooth, the catch when my chapped lips found a dip – the sort of wonderful you never want to end. One touch, lips to neck, and I could see every step we would take after this, clearly written out on a path in front of me, delineated and marked and labeled and I wanted it just as much as I didn't.

"You have to stop because I can't," I think I might have said, I wanted to say, anyway, because this didn't seem entirely right, and I must've said it, because he stepped back, my lips kissed air, and I opened my eyes.

A foot away – though it felt father – he was looking at me with dark, angry, hooded eyes, and they definitely flickered from my lips back to the rest of my face, and he hesitated, inching forward, before he turned away and left the bathroom.

And here I sit, on the tile floor, knowing that I just did something so incredibly stupid, I doubt even Rolph can fix it. The look on his face when he left – a combination of anger and loathing and lust, yes, but mostly loathing, it seemed – and he must really, truly, honestly hate me for what I just did, especially considering how Missy put his heart through the ringer yesterday.

I am a bitch of the first order.

_6:07 pm_

The first thing I said when I walked into Magenta's dorm room was, "Kill me. Please."

Looking up from _Great Expectations_, she frowned. "Why?"

"I just did something greatly, incredibly stupid to Warren."

Layla, cross-legged on top of Magenta's desk, raised an eyebrow. "So it's _Warren_, now?" she asked, and I tried to ignore her, but I couldn't. I flopped onto Audrey's bed and burst into tears.

Three times. Three times he has made me cry.

I hate him.

"What's wrong?" cried Layla, throwing herself at me and giving me sympathetic hugs and pats on the head. "Are you all right? What happened with Warren? Did he try to roast you? It's a sign of affection, I swear!"

"Layla," said Magenta, "shut up."

Layla, looking moderately offended but still understanding, pulled back and flapped her hands. "I'll just – that is, I'll go get something?" She grinned somewhat maniacally. "Chocolate?"

I mumbled something that I hoped she took to be assent. She left.

"Thank god," said Magenta. "She doesn't shut up." She put down Dickens, shuddering minutely, and crossed tentatively to where I sat on Audrey's bed. "Er." She patted me on the shoulder before settling down and folding her legs under her. "Do you want to be alone?"

"N-n-no," I warbled.

We sat in silence.

"What happened?" she finally asked, after I'd calmed down and cleaned my nose and tried not to think about it.

"I sort of molested Warren Peace," I said, and the look she gave me was frank enough that I had to start over – from the very beginning, starting with the nosebleed and the awkward kiss I'd pressed on my best friend Jimmy in the middle of ninth grade English, and ending with the muscles bunched in his shoulder as he propped himself against the stall doorway. What is it with Magenta and me spilling my guts?

"Oh," she finally said.

"Yeah," I said, torn between blushing with embarrassment and self-flagellation for my mistake. "Have I mentioned lately that I'm an idiot?"

"Well," said Magenta, "a bit. But not much." She pulled her legs out from under her, folded them again, and crossed them at the ankle. "Have you heard about Will and Layla? Been in love since she made her lima beans grow in first grade, and they hooked up freshman year because they almost died. That doesn't really sound like a great relationship start, right? But they're all lovey-dovey all over the place now. It'd be sickening if it wasn't so cute." She wiggled. "And Zach's a total moron, but I love him anyway."

I tried to mask my disbelief. "Yes, but don't tell me your relationship started this screwed up." I paused. "Not that Warren and I, you know—"

Magenta's snort cut me off. "Please. You didn't know him two weeks ago, and you hated him one week ago. Now it's 'Warren' instead of 'Peace,' and you're jumping him in bathrooms." She raised an eyebrow. "David stopped seeing you because Warren's warm for your form enough to be threatening people."

I buried my head in my hands. "Don't remind me about David."

"Sorry," she said unsympathetically. "Frankly, I've known Peace for years, and even if he's not in love with you, he's definitely way interested. I was _at_ the Madison, you know. Peace was glaring at Beanpole like he'd insulted his mother."

Rolph was another person I didn't really want to think about. "So you agree with David?"

"Peace left after the first set along with a bottle," continued Magenta. "They went without piano for the second." She grimaced. "It blew, of course," she said.

"Er," I said, frowning. "All right . . ."

"Point is," said Magenta, doing something with her leg that I didn't even know was possible, from a standpoint of flexibility of the human joints, "Warren likes you."

"If that was true," I said miserably, "he definitely doesn't any more."

_7:11 pm_

The woman at the cash register gave me the eyeball when I swiped my student ID for dinner. Three be-spectacled nerd types (not that I should be talking) were whispering about me behind my back when I went to grab a table in the back corner, with twenty pages of Econ text for company. My beef stroganoff is definitely staring at me.

_How do they all know?!?_

Because they do. All of them. I swear I've heard David's name at least ten times since I sat down at this damn table five minutes ago. We went out for coffee and a concert at the Madison. How do they all know? Why do they even _care_? I'm a puny freshman and he's a nerdy Econ graduate student!

That's it.

Screw the stroganoff (it's horrendous anyway, Jane's was so good it beat this one into the ground and flaunted its authority). Screw the nerd types. Screw the cash lady.

GAH.

_7:23 pm_

The trees outside are – surprisingly – empty. I suppose that could have something to do with it being late evening in the middle of September, and I just killed a mosquito the size of a bluebird. Ah, well, the trials and tribulations of being the newest campus gossip.

I thought that Hollywood made that crap up. I mean, Missy was usually the subject of nefarious rumors, but she's also one of the most powerful heroes this side of Gotham and looks like she should be on a _Vogue_ centerfold. I thought this sort of stuff died out in high school.

Apparently not.

It's just – how could he have told them? I mean, did he also mention the little shocker he sprung on me afterwards? Are the nerd types eagerly exchanging hypotheses on the multiple meanings of the phrase "in love with you" over their burritos?

I may have zero to no experience when it comes to relationships of . . . well, just about any kind . . . but even I know that telling OBJECTIVE, OUTSIDE OBSERVERS about the inner workings of the Gory Break-Up is not nice. At all.

Could I have been completely wrong about David? Is he actually an unmitigated ass?

_7:38 pm_

He got the Julianne Kinthus Seal of Approval! The woman is a freaking human polygraph!

_7:40 pm_

OH MY GOD WHAT IF PEACE HEARS THIS?? What if he finds out that David thinks he's in love with me?

He's going to _fucking roast me alive_, that's what – especially combined with what happened in the bathroom earlier today. I'm surprised that Missy isn't already picking out my epitaph.

Speaking of which – why _didn't_ he roast me earlier? I freaking sexually harassed him! If I were Warren Peace – and I thank every deity, living, dead, or undead, that I'm not – I would've slaughtered my ass. The janitors and Kinthus's unlucky graduate students would still be peeling bits of my blackened flesh off the ceiling of the women's bathroom, frankly.

Conclusion? I don't get men.

* * *

_Sunday, September 19th, 2:11 am_

Missy just called. She's under the apparent impression that Warren Peace and I are going out. She called to perform her duty as Jenny Monroe's More Responsible Younger Sibling, and basically tell me to scram out of her territory. Despite the fact that it's two in the morning and my sensory input is probably not the greatest, I'm about 98% sure she growled at me at one point.

Me: (_groggy_) Missy?

Missy: What the hell happened yesterday, Jenny?

Me: Wha? Missy, what time is it?

Missy: (_voice low and angry_) Tell me what the hell is going on!

Me: Er. What?

Missy: Stop trying to be witty, Jenny. Tell me the truth. You and Warren are going out, aren't you? That David guy was just a pretend thing.

Me: (_choking on stray bits of oxygen_) Sorry – what? Me? (_squeaking pathetically_) Warren Peace and I are not dating. Or having torrid affairs of any sort whatsoever.

Missy: Oh, really? Then what was the deal with Kinthus's lair?

Me: (_realizing that it's two in the morning_) You called me at two in the morning to have a heart-to-heart about Kinthus's testing procedure? Missy!

Olivia: (_lump under covers_) Monroe, if you do not take the family drama into the hall, I will cut you.

Me: Sorry, Liv. (_Promptly moves outside. Hall is freaking freezing_) I am not dating Warren Peace.

Missy: Then what was with the tearjerking? Are you trying to tell me that you didn't warn me off of him because you were upset?

Me: Of course I was upset. His heart was playing a Bach concerto.

Missy: I thought you hated him.

Me: He's been reasonable.

Missy: Warren Peace is never reasonable.

Me: I know that.

Missy: Are you sleeping with him?

Me: !!!!!

Missy: Well? Kinthus told me that you weren't reacting to other men anymore. We always thought that sex would straighten you out.

Me: (_heroically smothering a screech of frustration_) 'We?'

Missy: Mom and Dad.

Me: Missy, I can't believe you talked about me having _sex_. With our _parents_.

Missy: It's a bit hard to talk about you and not mention sex, Jennifer.

Me: Thanks, Melissa. Really.

Missy: Don't try to use sarcasm to worm your way out of this. You haven't given me an answer yet. You know, it isn't responsible of you to use him to take the edge off of the hypersensitivity, you know.

Me: I'm not!

Missy: How much time have you spent with him lately? Are you going through Kinthus's useless tests so that you can be cured – which is never going to happen, by the way – or because you want to spend time with him?

Me: (_hangs up_)

I am still in the hallway. I forgot my key and Olivia isn't answering the knock. No doubt she is punishing me for having a screaming match with my twin sister in the middle of the night.

I doubt she realizes that my sister just accused me of emotionally prostituting myself. I should probably be crying, considering how often the waterworks have been flowing lately, but I'm not feeling much of anything right now.

Except anger.

Yep. I am pretty freaking pissed off right now.

My _twin sister_ just accused me of sleeping with Warren Peace. Missy, who spent most of elementary and middle school teaching me how to spell properly; she brought me back Crab Rangoon every time she went out to the Paper Lantern with friends; she leant me her Sky High textbooks so I'd know at least something about the society my parents had banned me from (god, am I melodramatic or am I melodramatic?).

For a long time, Missy was my only connection to the outside world.

I can't believe she'd accuse me of something like this. Doesn't she know me at _all_? Doesn't she know that I'll probably die a virgin and alone and tired and lost and AARGH I JUST WISH THAT SOMEONE WOULD UNDERSTAND and the nerd types in the cafeteria would stop speculating about my dating prospects and that David didn't hate me and that Warren doesn't want to kill me and that I actually finished my Calculus problems for class on Friday, rather than being chewed out by the professor, who hates me and (bizarrely) adores the ground that Magenta walks on.

Not that Magenta isn't nice. She's just anti-social.

Fuck. _Now_ I'm crying.

_5:34 am_

Rolph is amazing. She doesn't deserve to have a son as bipolar and awkward as Warren Peace. I am more than half in love with her right now.

(And she makes _the most amazing_ hot chocolate in the world. For real.)

When I showed up at her door, I expected a polite pat on the head and maybe the chance to crash on her couch. I did not expect hot chocolate and cookies and her to sit with me and talk about my problems . . . WHY COULDN'T ROLPH HAVE BEEN MY MOTHER??

_8:02 am_

I just . . .

WHAT???

_8:04 am_

Okay. Okay. I'm fine. I'm cool. I'm . . .

FUCKING FREAKING OUT, THAT'S WHAT!!!!

(!!!!)

So _that's_ why he's been doing all of this, letting me kiss his neck and threatening David and being a total bastard and thinking that I was a dream yesterday when I went to his room and the weird arm slung out across his bed like it was waiting for someone and the muttered comments and why everyone thinks he's in love with me and why his heart was like the third track off a Green Day album when I was crying.

It all makes sense now.

Of a sort.

I've been affecting him with my hypersensitivity. He's attracted to me too.

He doesn't love me. I doubt he even really likes me. He just wants to fuck me.

There is ZERO AFFECTION WHATSOEVER between us. He doesn't really care about me at all. It's all because of my fucking genes.

I _hate_ him. I hate myself.

* * *

_And as the melodramatic theme music swells . . ._

_Right, so you all probably hate me and/or are very confused right now. Believe it or not, there is a method to my madness. Of course, that doesn't make reading any of your theories any less interesting--what are your thoughts on the current Jenny/Peace dynamic? Is it forever ruined?  
_


	11. In which girl attempts a return

**Notes:** I am _so sorry _guys. This was written weeks ago, but my computer got slammed with a nasty, nasty virus, and I was going insane trying to save everything. I'm good now, and apparently clean, but I wasn't able to upload anything for a while. But here's the next chapter, which includes a New, Improved Hypothesis on the Matter of Jenny's Power.

(Also--I cannot claim ownership of the Super Mom title; I hope you don't mind that I borrowed it, Une-Mauvaise-Femme?)

* * *

CHAPTER ELEVEN – In which girl (Jenny) attempts a return to sanity (Maxville)

_Sunday, September 19th, 8:34 am_

According to Rolph, when she settled me down in her living room and handed me a lopsided mug full of her absolutely yummy hot chocolate, Peace's behavior was perfectly normal in the circumstances. It turned out that she knew about the weird stall incident – she's got a healing power, believe it or not (where I suppose Peace's vague indestructibility comes from, because she's got it too), and she could sense something off with Peace from thirty feet away.

He told her everything. The shmuck.

"Jenny," she said, sitting next to me on the couch and looking sympathetic, "it's not your fault."

"Of course it's my fault," I hiccupped into my chocolate.

"No, Jenny," she said, running fingers through my hair. "It was Warren's fault, actually."

"Warren just stood there," I said, remembering the tension in his body. "He didn't prompt anything or . . . anything. It was _all my fault_." I burst into a new wave of tears.

"He went after you," she said. "He knew what would happen."

"I thought I had better self-control," I said, feeling the light scrape of her nails against my scalp. "Maybe he did, too."

"That's not why," said Rolph.

I raised my eyes to hers and took a sip of chocolate. She was looking at her hand as it pulled through my short hair. "Why, then?" I asked. I was sure that whatever her answer was, it wasn't to be trusted. Or at least automatically believed. She was, after all, attempting to (badly) calm me down.

"We had a talk," she said, "while you were in the bathroom. About his test results."

"Yeah?" I asked, not really interested.

"I was wrong," she said quietly.

"About what?" I asked, surprised.

"About the direction of your hypersensitivity." She sighed, and stalled her fingers. "We have a new functioning hypothesis." Her hand curled around my head. "We believe that you _do_ have hypersensitivity . . . but that what you're sensing is not your own attraction, but the attraction of the men you're around."

"Sorry," I said, "what?" Tired and aching, even hot chocolate couldn't make processing this at five-thirty in the morning any easier.

"Your power makes men attracted to you," she said, "and a lesser part of it reflects the attraction in your brain. Everything you've felt has been a reflection of a man's own attraction. Your pheromones bring _them_ to _you_ rather than the other way around."

I paused, hot chocolate halfway to my lips. "So . . . it's not me?"

"It is you," she said gently. "You influence them, however, rather than the other way around. Your hypersensitivity is actually a slightly increased sensitivity to the hormones of the men you affect." She sighed. "The fall that you mentioned didn't suppress the hypersensitivity – rather, because your sensitivity is not as severe as originally presumed, the pain shut it off."

"I'm not hypersensitive," I said slowly. I put the hot chocolate on the table and pulled myself away from her. "I'm just a little more sensitive than normal?"

"Yes."

"And what's really happening is I'm making guys attracted to me?"

"Yes." I tilted my head back so her hand fell away. "Jenny," she said, reaching for her own cup of chocolate, "we're still right about many things. You're still genetically marked – your mother was a predecessor, of course, and nature didn't quite get things right with her. But we think that because your pull – Julianne insists on calling it the Thrall – didn't exist in any of your grandparents, your children will have very interesting powers. New powers."

"Oh." There it was again, the Super Mom hypothesis. I never really considered having children. Not that I didn't _want_ to – I still want to, actually, because I love kids (er. The idea of kids, at least. Seeing as how I barely get out of the house long enough to interact with them. Crap. I'm going to be a crap mother, aren't I?). I just never thought I'd be able to get over my . . . what, Thrall? . . . long enough to have a secure marriage.

The conceiving part would not be a problem, I think.

"Why is it off?" I asked. "Why didn't David, y'know . . . yeah."

"Warren is your body's prime choice."

"So I'm not 'enthralling' anyone else?"

"For now, no."

"According to your hypothesis," I said, then had to pause and clear my throat and lick my lips and try again, "how do I turn it off?"

She looked away. "The normal way to deplete pheromones, Jenny."

"Ah," I said.

Sex.

And then I said something I really, really regret. Not just what happened afterwards, but that I said it at all because Rolph has been wonderful, and it's not her fault she has to deal with my emo-ness. I said it because I was angry, at Mother Nature (the real one) for making me some sort of evolutionary slut, for Warren Peace for not _freaking telling me_, and probably just about everyone else in the universe, for no reason other than that I hated myself.

"Are you saying your medical recommendation is that I sleep with your son?"

"Jenny—"

God hates me. I know he does.

"They told you."

I turned around slowly.

Peace, of course. Standing in his mother's entryway at six in the morning. There was a bag of bagels in his hand. His hair was caught up in an approximation of a ponytail. Strands had come loose and were scraping his cheekbones.

"Why didn't _you_?" I asked. He was far enough away that I didn't feel the need to throw myself at him. Much.

"I was busy," he said. My face turned red. It probably matched my strawberry-dotted pajama pants. Feeling self-conscious, I crossed my arms in front of my (barely covered – it's _September_, normal people wear tank tops to bed) chest.

"Warren," said Rolph from behind me, "be nice."

"Hn," he grunted, and dropped the bag of bagels on the table next to the door.

"Are you mad at me?" I finally asked, because it wasn't like Peace or Rolph were going to add anything to the conversation.

"Yes," he said.

"Warren," said Rolph.

"It's not like I _picked_ you," I said. Where did he get off? Couldn't he be mature enough to be mad at the situation, not _me_, when I had NOTHING TO DO WITH IT? "There was zero conscious decision-making going on, let me tell you."

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?" he demanded.

"You're temperamental and anti-social and mean!" I said. "Why would I have picked _you_?"

"Monroe, you're not exactly a catch yourself."

"Hey! At least I'm capable of stringing two words together! And I don't consider grunts a form of intelligent conversation."

"Do you even know what intelligent conversation is?"

"I know enough to know that you don't have it. Hello, at least David never glared at me."

(Much.)

Watching the paint begin to peel off the ceiling of Rolph's entryway, I probably should have realized that this was a good time to stop the temper tantrum. But it was true – David was lovely and sweet and understanding, at least before Peace came and killed our budding relationship. Why _couldn't_ Peace be like David? Liking him would be easier if he was like David.

"_David_ didn't know _anything_," he said.

"_David_ actually cares about me. _David_ doesn't—"

"David broke up with you," he said. "He doesn't care. No one cares, Monroe. Your fucking power pushes everyone away."

"Shut up!" I said, in a voice high and squeaking. "Just shut up, Peace! The only reason you have friends is because they're too stubborn to leave you alone!"

"I have friends," he said. "You had to steal mine."

The flames were licking up to the shoulders of his jacket, and there was smoke coming out of his mouth with every deep breath that he took. For every iota of anger that I felt, there was the rather desperate need to launch myself over the seat of the couch and pull of that stupid jacket and see what his arms looked like with the flames peeling across his skin.

So I was angry at him _and_ at myself when I picked up my mostly-empty cup of hot chocolate, not even thinking about it's owner at the other end of the couch, aiming at his head, when he reached out and the ceramic exploded.

According to Rolph, who angrily banished her son and began to fix my hand, the air pockets in the clay expanded due to the extreme heat, and the pressure made the cup explode; completely inadvertent on Peace's side, apparently, although I'll believe that the day I personally witness Layla settling into a nice, juicy steak. Knowing that didn't make looking at the ragged bit of ceramic stuck into my palm any easier, but it was nice of her to at least attempt to explain.

She suggested that I go home for the night. "Spend time away from Warren," she said, cool fingers crisscrossing my palm. "I suggest you sit down and think about what you want to do," she said. "Now that you know – the decision to continue testing is entirely up to you. Knowing what we do, it might be more difficult to fix. With hypersensitivity, it was a question of neurology – now, who knows?"

She ran fingers through my hair again.

"Think," she said. "Take the 8:00 train back to Maxville. I'm sure your parents will be glad to see you, and Richard can suspend testing for tomorrow."

I doubt Mom and Dad will be all that glad to see me, especially since Rolph curled my newly-healed fingers around two twenties, wrapped me in a giant green sweater, and dropped me at the train station. I have a journal, a cell phone, and a black ballpoint pen to my name, at the moment.

I'm sitting on the train now, watching the trees pass. The sweater smells really nice, a bit like smoke. When we were little, Dad and Mom would have neighborhood barbeques. Then Linda Williams and her daughter moved in and started talking to the cows at the farm, and gave us the evil eye whenever we even vaguely suggested hamburgers.

So, no more smoke.

It's huge, too, but soft. I wonder what company made it –

The name on the label says that this article of clothing is the property of Maxwell Verne. Peace's father. Hmm.

_11:00 am_

The house is empty, but the spare key is in the potted plant that Mrs. Williams gave to us years ago. Williams, plants – holy shit, I've been Layla's next door neighbor for _twelve years_ and I didn't even recognize her.

God, I am a failure of a human being.

_11:02 am_

It's exactly the same. I don't know what I expected to change, especially since it's only been about two weeks since I left, but they haven't moved a thing. I mean, I suspect Jane has come in and dusted, because my X-men figurines (and despite whatever Missy said, they _are not action figures_, god, they came in collectable cases and they don't have movable limbs) aren't even dusty.

But all of it, the posters, the indentation on my desk where my computer sat for years, my 20th anniversary edition of _Watchmen_ – there's no change.

It just feels . . . off, you know? My life has gone to crap, after all. Why hasn't my room changed to reflect the complete suckiness of my current existence? I am really, really tempted to lie on the bed and then just never get up.

I mean, why do I want to become a geneticist? To heal myself, I guess, and to not interact with other humans. Those are probably the two worst reasons to ever go into a particular career. Knowing that I couldn't become a hero, I just chose something else.

What else could I do? The only reason I got into college was because I took online classes and my parents pulled a few strings. I got into science through comic books, and then chat boards. I can't _do_ anything else – science was logical. Yeah, I'm good at it, but why? Did I force myself to be interested in it?

God, I have no idea what I want to do with my life.

What if Rolph and Kinthus and Julianne _do_ cure me? Then what? I'm already the bane of the existence of my parents. Will they be happier when I'm powerless, or just more ashamed?

AARGH.

Oh, Dad's in the back. I should . . . go talk to him. Unfortunately.

Gah.

_1:23 pm_

Dad was at the edge of the creek when I'd finished the dangerous trek down the stairs and across most of the house. It's not really cold out, but it certainly isn't go-out-and-take-a-dip-in-the-creek-shirtless weather, either. Then again, I'm more susceptible to temperature than Dad and Missy.

"Dad," I said. "You got hypothermia yet?"

"Oh, Jenn," he said, turning around. I got all my . . . well, _slimness_ from Dad, so he while didn't look homeless, I could sort of make out his hipbones. His hands were cased in thick ice gloves, little tendrils snaking down his wrists. "Dare I ask what you're doing home?"

"Visiting," I said, shrugging and pulling Maxwell Verne's gigantic sweater around me. "Thought I'd crash here and see how you guys are doing." Dad was rapidly losing interest and turning his attention back to the creak, thoughtfully weaving his hands back and forth. "Practicing?" I asked.

"Missy thinks she's developed a new technique," he said, flexing joints in the ice gloves. "I want to see if it's really possible." As he wound his hands together, flicking fingers and grimacing, I tried not to feel insulted that he and Mom had purposely called her. It wasn't that hard.

"Ah, I said, bored. "That's nice."

Having a power – if you could call it that – that isn't useful in battle, I don't really "practice" all that much. Watching Dad mutter to himself as he waved his hands wasn't that exciting, especially since our twenty minutes of silence went mostly uninterrupted. Whatever the technique was, Dad wasn't getting it. Eventually he stopped, melting his gloves back into the creek. "I thought so," he muttered. "Impossible, surely, unless she was manipulating on a molecular level—"

"Where's Mom?"

"On call," he said, wiping any lingering dampness onto his jeans. "She probably won't be back until tomorrow night. I'm sorry, but I promised Joan and Jerry that I'd go to the theatre and then dinner with them tonight. Can you fend for yourself? I think Jane left some pot roast in the freezer."

I didn't bother asking if the (vague) pun was on purpose.

"Har har," I said politely. "No, it's fine. I came back just to get away from campus."

"You aren't staying?" he asked, making it obvious he'd tuned me out earlier. Our bare feet slid over the leaves that littered the slope leading down to the creek as we climbed back to the house. Fall comes early in Maxville, something my dad and Missy always like.

"You mean, home for good?" I asked. "No, Dad. I'm not giving up."

Yet.

"That's good," he said, vaguely patting me on the shoulder. "I'm proud of you."

"Sure," I said, striving not to sound awkward and disbelieving. We reached the back door. He opened it, gestured me through. "Have fun at the theater, Dad. Tell Joan and Jerry to say hi to Susie for me."

"She's already got a sidekick and is out on the streets, did you know?" asked Dad. "In my day, we moved right out of school, like Susie – she's Alpha Girl, by the way. Now everyone wants to go to college first. Which is nice, but no one ever seems to realize how many responsibilities you have as a hero."

"Hmm," I said. "Imagine that."

He gave me a final absent pat on the shoulder, then went upstairs to change into something slightly more appropriate. No doubt the theater will be absolutely stifling for him this time of year; I wondered for a second why he even agreed to go with Joan and Jerry Rodheim, considering how little he and Mom like either of them. They aren't the Strongholds, after all, and my parents are big on Image.

_3:34 pm_

I found Jane skulking around the lower level after Dad left, reorganizing all of the hero paraphernalia my parents have gathered up over the years. It's a thankless job, but someone has to do it. Before I left, it was _my_ monthly job. Now it appears to be Jane's.

"You're home," she said, sounding disgruntled.

"Yep," I said cheerfully. "I love you too."

"Hmph," she said. "College too much for you?"

"Just visiting," I said. She was prodding a ray gun, looking at it askew and about to kill herself, provided she pressed the green button. "That's Mi-T-Fine's," I said. "The Teh-Sizzle 2003."

"Ah," said Jane, and she scribbled it into her files before setting the ray gun to the side. "How long are you back for?"

"Tonight," I said, settling onto the floor to help her. "I have class on Tuesday, so I'm taking the evening train back."

"Did Missy come with you?" she asked.

"No," I said, scowling.

"Thank god," said Jane, and I (silently) agreed with her.

She was already half-way done with the process, and all that was left was categorizing all of my parent's old hero stuff. Mom's old suit (her hips were narrower, before she had Missy and I), Dad's Ice Ray gear from when he was solo, and Jane's Cosmic Girl stuff.

"You let Mom and Dad keep this?" I asked, folding the spangled leggings.

"Why not?" she said, shrugging. "It's not like there's anyone I can give it to."

"You have a son," I pointed out.

"With no powers," she said. "He doesn't know."

Which is why Jane lives with us, actually. She lost her powers, ages ago, in an accident with some crazy crime lord or a super villain or a mob boss or something (she won't tell me who or how, which I guess is her prerogative), and in return for Services Rendered or something equally patronizing, my parents keep her around.

She hates them, of course, which is fine with me because I do too, but there isn't really another career option for her. So now she helps Mom and Dad around the house, and they are condescending and call her _Poor Jane_.

Her son goes to a normal elementary school, adopted by normal parents, and she lives in our lower level, making the best beef stroganoff I've ever had in my life and mocking my parents mercilessly whenever they're not around to notice.

"Still," I said, "it's not like Mom and Dad are going to realize the worth of this. You should donate it to the National League museum or something."

"Hmph!" said Jane. She glowered at me from under her eyebrows.

"Or not," I added. "That's cool too." A second later, realizing that I sounded like Zach, I kicked myself.

* * *

_As you can see . . . the truce didn't really have much hope of lasting. In related news, how do you think the current balance of power will affect the Warren-Jenny dynamic?_


	12. In which girl has an epiphany

**Notes:** My most abject, horrible apologies. I got infected again, and posting was, frankly, the last thing on my long list of priorities. My third virus since Christmas. I hate my life.

Anyway, here I am with blessed continuance. Enjoy!

* * *

CHAPTER TWELVE – In which girl (Jenny) has an epiphany (Biology)

_Monday, September 20th, 2:34 am_

Being back home has obviously altered my brain, because I had a dream last night (er . . . tonight). I mean, yes, I've always had these dreams – being hypersensitive to sex does, on occasion, make these very plausible occurrences. But there are only about four I can remember with any vague certainty.

But I had not, as of yet, had a Dream about Warren Peace. Why? Mainly because I don't dream about anything, really. At least, I don't dream and then remember them later with . . . uncomfortable detail.

I did. Last night. Dream of Warren Peace, that is. A lot. Many times. At least five. Over and over.

GAH. I don't think I can handle facing him _or_ David in Macro tomorrow.

He tried to KILL ME yesterday. I am practically sexually HARRASSING HIM ON A DAILY BASIS. He wants to fuck me because of my stupid genes, and what am I doing? I'm having dirty dreams. _Vivid_ dirty dreams. Were this a hotel in Amsterdam, my dreams, on cable, would cost you €35 per half-hour.

I cannot function as a human being. I should just . . . not go back.

Screw finding a cure. I doubt we _can_ find a cure at this rate. What cure? Are they going to pump me full of anti-phermones? Perhaps cut down on my progesterone production? I mean, Mom's been strutting around in her catsuit for the past twenty years and the world's premiere scientists _still_ don't know why every supervillain she turns her eyes onto want to either a) screw her brains out, or b)commit any of the other six deadly sins, like gluttony, wrath, pride, sloth, envy, and greed.

Twenty years. Premiere scientists. Nada limonada, so far.

I don't know what to do.

(Other than throw myself off the Maxville Bridge, that is.)

_3:45 am_

Wait a second - estrogen and progesterone production. PROGESTERONE AND ESTROGEN PRODUCTION. OH MY GOD I NEED TO CALL ROLPH.

_4:25 am_

Rolph says she feels like a complete idiot for not noticing, but I mean, I didn't either. And yes, I realize her job as an endocrinologist is to notice these sorts of things, but at least _someone _noticed and if that someone isn't the person who, you know, went to medical school for it, who cares? I mean, I took an in-depth Biology course more recently than she did, so who's to blame?

She says that she's sending someone to pick me up because she can't get away from the office to get me herself.

OH MY GOD WHY HADN'T I THOUGHT OF THIS BEFORE?????

_7:55 am_

I'm in Zach's car right now, smushed in the back between two baskets of Mrs. Williams' fresh-picked produce for Layla.

I don't know who, exactly, I was expecting to show up at my house, but it probably wasn't Magenta with Day-Glo in tow.

"Marvel called," said Magenta, kicking the door open. "They want their life back."

I was bouncing around the room at this point, more than slightly jittery. I'd started trying to fill the hour by washing my hair, but was too excited to do anything other than run some shampoo through and shave my legs haphazardly. Then I scanned through my old Biology textbooks (the ones Mom got from Amazon and Cousin Jeffrey), but that just made me too excited.

So I threw on some of my old clothes – a ratty Punisher T-shirt and the baggy jeans that Missy have given me after they went out of style – and started puttering.

And waiting.

And waiting.

And lo, two hours after I hung up with Rolph, Magenta and Day-Glo were entering through the door to my bedroom.

"Shut up," I said, lacking real venom. I threw on Maxwell Verne's sweater and herded them out of the house. I waved good-bye to Jane, who vaguely grunted at me, and then we were out in the sun. What Day-Glo called a car was actually a living embodiment of what will get you arrested for irresponsible driving, but I didn't really have time to complain. They were already stuffed to the gills with vegetables (an excuse for Layla and Will as to why they were bailing out so quickly), and we peeled away with relative speed, keeping in mind the general disorganization and uselessness of Zach's car.

"So what's up?" was the first thing Magenta asked once we were past the first toll booth and on our way.

"What do you mean?" I asked innocently.

"Don't pretend," said Magenta. "It doesn't suit you when you have a giant skull on your tee-shirt."

"Oh," I said, stalling for time.

"I know," added Zach helpfully. Magenta and I turned to glare.

"You _what_?" I demanded squeakily.

"I thought I told you to _shut up_," said Magenta in a Very Threatening tone.

Zach whimpered. "Sorry," he said, curling up against the driver's door. "Don't hurt me . . ."

"Ugh," said Magenta, rolling her eyes. "I had to tell him, or else he wouldn't have come with me. Or he would've come, but been really annoying and loud."

"Well," I said, trying to find a comfortable place to wedge my shoulder between the crates, "I think I've come up with a solution. Or, more aptly, a cause. And finding the cause will help _find_ the solution."

"A cause?" asked Zach. "So it's not, like, Super-Sexiness?"

"Er," I said. "No. It's not."

"You owe me twenty bucks," Magenta told Zach. "Explain away, Monroe."

"I _think_," I said, "stress on think, that my body is over-producing some of the necessary fertility hormones. Animals in the wild go into 'heat' when they're fertile, and I think that my body is redirecting my estrogen towards advertising that I'm ovulating rather than, y'know, doing normal estrogen things."

"Like giving you boobs?" asked Zach helpfully.

"Zach," said Magenta. "Please remember that I can drive, and we'd all be happier if you didn't have a functioning tongue."

"Right," he said. "Moving on."

"Yes, moving on," I said. "Well, that's what I think is wrong with me. Too much estrogen going to the wrong place."

"That . . . is the weirdest power I've ever heard of, if you don't mind me saying," said Magenta.

"_You_ turn into a guinea pig," I pointed out.

"Yes, but _I_ don't exist solely to enhance the laws of science," she said. "At least not the conservation of mass or whatever."

"I bet you get really cold when you change back, am I right?" I asked.

"Yeah," said Magenta. "You . . . really?"

"Sucking heat out of the air," I said. "And I bet you rival our friendly neighborhood pyro when you change into a guinea pig. That's the energy from breaking bonds."

I tried not to think of the Friendly Neighborhood Pyro. I didn't really succeed.

"Oh," said Magenta faintly. "Wow, really?"

"Yep," I said, then wincing as I stuck myself on a stray bit of wire from the crates. "And Zach glows because his body secretes a phosphorescent oil. I'm betting that Magenta glows a little sometimes, when you two – well, spend time together, right?"

Halfway through my sentence, I began to blush. Magenta looked out the window, smothering a smirk, and Zach began to glow. The conversation sort of stopped there, but I think I got my point across. I, Jenny Monroe, was not the only scientific marvel in the car. (And wow, can I be any more of a geek? I mean, really? No wonder I'm going into science. I can't speak anything other than pure nerd.)

Ooh! University exit coming up.

_10:32 am_

We (as in Julianne, Kinthus, and Rolph . . . apparently someone decided that Peace was not a necessary addition to the Fun People party) are waiting for my blood work to come back. Rolph is already predicting that the tests won't say anything is wrong, because technically I'm not producing too _much_ estrogen, it's just not going to the right place.

"We'll only start experimenting with cocktails after we're sure that this is what's going on," she said firmly, and I certainly wasn't about to start arguing with me. Being a guinea pig for a bunch of semi-hazardous lab tests isn't on my list of Things I Want to Do Before I Die (a list which is sadly topped by Warren Peace right now).

At first Kinthus told me I was being distracting as I flittered around his office and disturbed his office hours, but now he's gone to cover his Neurology 132 class and I'm being just plain annoying and tapping my foot and knocking things over, much to the consternation of Rolph and Julianne. Rolph just suggested (for the eighth time) that I go take a walk and burn off some of this nervous energy. I told her I didn't want to miss anything, and she smiled faintly but didn't seem able to contradict me.

Hmm, maybe I will go for a walk—Rolph's eyebrow is twitching in time with my foot-tapping (_Oh Fortuna_ from the Carmina Burana, but I doubt she appreciates that it was a fine piece of musical history).

Mm, it's taco day at the U.

_10:54 am_

AHH IT'S DAVID.

_10:56 am_

I don't think he saw me. I really, _really_ hope he didn't see me, because it was a little embarrassing how quickly I jumped behind the potted palm in the lobby of the International Students Office. I'll just take a peek—

Nope, he didn't notice.

What is he _doing_ here? He's a graduate student with an office all the way across campus, for God's sake. He doesn't need to come here for his daily Coke-and-peanuts or whatever else he's getting from Julio's kiosk, as he has the best vending machines on campus (seriously, they are so broken you can give them wadded-up pieces of paper for Doritos) right outside his office doors.

Unless . . .

He couldn't be looking for me, could he? I mean, maybe an effort to apologize for _telling the entire school about our break-up_? Or maybe just looking to once again rub into my face how completely incompetent I am at anything approaching a normal relationship? This time he'll have an audience and everything for my utter embarrassment.

Okay, I might be a tad bit bitter. Just a smidge.

Just snuck another look, and he is still loitering around the frigging kiosk. How long does it take to get change for a magazine and some chips?! Seriously, David, you're an Econ major, you should have this sort of math programmed into your brain. It doesn't take _me_ this long to count change and I'm the one easily susceptible to the pheromones of the Julio the Hot Cashier . . . only wait, I'm not! It's _Julio_ who's the one attracted to me!

Um, pardon my moment of unethical glee, but boo frickin' _ya_.

That's one for the chick with no chest.

Uh-oh, the woman at the desk behind the divider is giving me encouraging looks. She probably thinks I'm an exchange student who doesn't have enough spine to go ask them for a travel pass or something equally embarrassing. Do you think she'll be disappointed if I just sink deeper into my potted plant . . . yes, Houston, we have visual confirmation that she is, in fact, looking confused.

Don't call your supervisor, don't call your supervisor.

And that . . . would be her supervisor. Dear God, please let David be gone from Julio's kiosk when I unearth myself in two seconds. Please.

Damn. Spotted.

_11:23 am_

Well _that_ was the most awkward conversation of my life. It probably didn't help that David was staring over my shoulder every twenty seconds like a paranoid freak (oh god, I hope he wasn't looking for Peace or something), and I dropped a bit of taco sauce on my shirt earlier and it was glaringly obvious, as it made the Punisher look like his middle tooth was melting--and frankly, melting teeth did not imbue the situation with an aura of health and wellness.

But I digress.

I was three synapse firings away from making my rapid-fire escape down the hall to the elevators (having not spent much time at the U, I can't really guarantee that there even _are_ elevators down the hall . . . I really need to do recon on this building if I'm going to continue sneaking around like a KGB agent) when Julio—traitor!—spotted me and let out a very friendly "Doritos girl!"

To which I could only respond, "Hey, Julio."

And David saw me. And David looked away. He was shuffling awkwardly from foot to foot, determinedly not looking at me, and both of our faces probably looked redder than Julio's Real Madrid jersey. He must've gathered after a few seconds that I was alone and sans stalker, because he made jerky eye contact for a few seconds.

I don't usually put much value in the whole gazing-into-eyes-to-see-the-soul thing, so I can't confidently say that I saw David's deep remorse for what he said to me. So what clued me into the remorse? Probably that the next words out of his mouth were "I am _so sorry_, Jenny."

"Ah," I said. "Er." How did he expect me to respond? I forgive you for completely destroying my peace of mind and self-esteem?

"Look," he said, reaching out to lightly grasp my elbow and drag me away from the rapt Julio-and-kiosk towards my old friend the potted palm. "I guess I flipped out about how you went out of it and Peace immediately knew everything, and was—okay, I'm not presenting my case well. Let me start over." He glanced at his watch and then seemed to realize he was wrapped around my elbow and quickly withdrew. "Do you want to go dinner with me? Tonight? So we can talk?"

I almost said yes.

And then I remembered our lovely new hypothesis. Just because Peace's reaction is the only one I'm feeling doesn't mean that Peace's reaction is the _only_ reaction. David wants to date me not because he's salivating after Missy, which is nice, but because my pheromones are broadcasting loud and clear that my uterus is just eagerly awaiting baby implants.

"That," I said, "would be a bad idea."

"Are you—"

"No," I said, sighing and stepping backwards (into the potted palm, but that's neither here nor there). "I'm not going out with Peace, and it's not that I don't like spending time with you or anything. It's just . . . not a good idea right now." I tried to remember how to sell it. "I don't want you to have to wait."

Silly Jenny. David the Econ TA is not to be dissuaded by paltry reason and GOOD SENSE.

"I'll wait," he said.

"Er, no. You won't." Because he's a guy, and frankly it doesn't matter how sweet he was or the sunflower for my hair or any of that—he's made of testosterone and he's got about a foot and probably fifty pounds on me, and I cannot afford to be around him knowing this and knowing that according to my lovely friend _math_, I starting ovulating about today and god I hate my life.

How fucked up is it that I have to worry about _them_ jumping _me_ now? Why do I have to be the rational one when all my brain wants to do is find Warren Peace and stick my tongue in his

"Jenny, I swear," he said desperately, and he reached for my arm but I had to jerk out of the way and I felt like a complete and utter bitch as his face fell. "I just—I am so sorry, and I don't deserve someone like you, Jenny."

"It's not _like_ that," I said, frustrated. "Listen, David, I like you, but it's not safe—not a good idea for you to be around me right now. At all."

"Safe?" he asked, leaning forward and brushing my hair out of my eyes, and although it was the most romantic thing I'd ever seen in my life, all I could feel was a sinking in my gut. "Jenny, are you all right? Peace isn't . . . doing anything to you, is he?" He tugged at my wrist, twisting my arm a bit, and I realized a breathless second later what he thought.

"Oh my _god_, David, Warren Peace and I are not in an abusive relationship."

I probably said that a shade bit too loud, as the woman behind the desk-and-divider looked up, startlingly interested in what would prompt such a juicy tidbit. I cringed, which in hindsight really didn't help my case with David that much. "Jenny, it's all right," said David. "You can tell me—"

I cut him off. "Really, David, it's not that. You're getting the wrong impression here. Warren Peace won't even talk to me, let alone date me, and I'm not being abused. I know what this looks like, but it's not, I swear, and you just need to realize that this . . . David? Hello?"

He had that same glazed look in his eyes as that night at the Madison, and he was running a finger back and forth across my wrist just lightly enough for me to feel the scrape his fingernail. I could feel a creepy inkling crawling across my spine. To test it, I pulled experimentally at my wrist, and David released me to better reach out and slide his hands down my upper arms. The Punisher t-shirt, being over-sized, slipped a bit at the neck, and David's hand was inching up towards my shoulder when I kicked over the potted palm.

The loud noise it made as it shattered broke David out of his funk, and he jerked away from me so suddenly it was as though he had been burned. "Oh, Jenny," he cried. "I'm sorry." He turned on his heel and almost dashed away, shaking his head and rubbing at his hair. "God," I heard him mutter over his rapid-fire footsteps, and then I shook myself and pulled myself from the rubble of the potted palm.

I am a horrible, horrible human being. God damn it.

_11:34 am_

Kinthus and Rolph and Julianne asked me what my decision is. I told them I'll continue the testing. I want this to go away. _Now_.

* * *

_Thoughts? I realize it's been a while--but will Jenny be cured? Or will it be yet another bust in a long series of . . . well, lust-riddled busts. Hmm._

_(Hopefully you guys won't have to wait a month to find out. Ha. Ha. Sorry. I'm trying to laugh off the pain . . .)  
_


	13. In which girl goes officially crazy

**Notes:** I am _so sorry_ about how late this is. This chapter . . . was not easy to write, at all.

* * *

CHAPTER THIRTEEN – In which girl (Jenny) goes officially crazy

_Wednesday, September 22nd, 11:02 am_

What a place.

We're somewhere in the Biology building, as far as I can tell, but this place has to be left over from the Cold War or something, because I refuse to believe that the building inspectors—or the fire marshal, for that matter—would let the university build something like this. (Holy shit, Kinthus has a BatCave!)

It's three rooms total; a large, donut-shaped outer space, and then a little airlock-esque space, and finally a tiny little room with padded rooms like an insane asylum and a door with a little metal flap at the bottom and a glass/Plexiglas/unknown compound window of equally small size next to it. There's an intercom system and a little toilet out of view of the window and a dry sink and a buzzer by the door that I can press.

They let me putter around the donut room for a while, at least until I was calmed enough to venture into the rectangular airlock and then the padded room with the door open. It's as though I'm consigning myself to an insane asylum.

No one is sending me. I'm sending myself. _I_ am willingly putting _myself_ in a little cell straight out of a sanitarium or _Iron-Jawed Angels_. I have to be crazy. That must be it. The Super Sexy gene must be affecting my brain, because I cannot be doing this out of logic and free will.

And yet here I am, dressed in an old flannel shirt and a pair of ratty leggings (comfort clothes), looking like I should have a Pearl Jam CD stuck in a duffle somewhere. The bed isn't that uncomfortable, actually, and someone (probably Rolph, since Julianne isn't really the type to care. Or notice) put lots of pillows on it. How did they know I like to bury myself in pillows when I sleep? They also hung up a couple posters, and I can see a Monet print through the Plexiglas divider thing.

I friggin _hate_ Monet. Do they know that too?

More importantly: why am I stalling?

Well, okay, I know why I'm stalling. I just need to stop.

_1:38 pm_

The door makes the most awful sound in the world when it locks and unlocks. Like the buzzing of tiny, angry bees.

* * *

_Thursday, September 23rd, 2:45 am_

Rolph and Julianne just came by and dropped off my class work. I don't know why I'm even bothering to continue classes, considering how behind I'm going to end up when this is over. Who knows how long this stupid hormone therapy is going to take?

* * *

_Saturday, September 25th, 5:35 pm_

Magenta and Layla came by today. They've told everyone who doesn't know about the Super Mom genes that I fell down a flight of stairs and am in the hospital. The people who _do_ know, other than the three scientists and Magenta and Layla think that I've had a mental break after all the testing and just need my space. I don't know who they expected to visit.

Now I'm _crying_. I _hate_ hormone therapy, I _hate_ Kinthus, who can't even visit me anymore because they're worried about me possibly infecting even the happily-screwed now, and I _hate hate hate hate_ Warren Peace. It's all his fault.

* * *

_Sunday, September 26th, 2:13 am_

Okay, that's a lie. It's not all his fault.

IT'S MOM AND DAD'S FAULT. I HATE THEIR GENES. I HOPE THEY SUFFER.

* * *

_Tuesday, September 28th, 11:51 pm_

If I ever see Warren Peace again, I'm going to RIP his eyeballs OUT OF HIS SKULL and then IMPALE THEM ON A SPIKE in front of his freaking dormitory so everyone can know just how much I CURRENT HATE HIS GUTS.

AHHHHHH. I hope that the Area 51 agents come and kidnap him for experimental testing. I hope the Fatal Five come and Emerald Empress goes creepy on his ass with her eyeball of doom. HE SHOULD BE FEELING AS AWFUL AS I'M FEELING.

It is NOT FAIR that he's not experiencing this, too.

* * *

_Thursday, October 1st, 1:03 am_

I've been horribly depressed for a bit now. It's really, really bad. I don't want to do anything except sleep and listen to sad music. Magenta put that song from that bad movie about vampires on my iPod now, and it's all soft and soothing and the singer mumbles so I don't know what he's talking about, and it's nice to listen to his voice until I fall asleep. Sometimes I imagine that it's Peace, forgiving me and playing me the piano like that night at the Madison, until I remember that he hates me and threw shards of ceramic at me.

* * *

_Monday, October 5th, 4:04 pm_

Magenta and Layla aren't allowed to visit for a bit. I may or may not have thrown my dinner tray at their heads; I can't really remember, I'm so out of it for so often. I don't even want to write anymore, I just want to forget everything and slip away for a year and a day, and maybe more. All I dream about now is nothingness. I haven't dreamed about Warren Peace and his lovely, warm, hot hands in so long that I almost miss the dreams, even though I always woke up so sweaty and crazy that I needed the air conditioning afterwards, to calm my heart and mind.

* * *

_Wednesday, October 7th, 1:42 am_

I was born at this exact time, in a month or so. Funny, funny funny. I think so. I just told Rolph, but she doesn't think that it's funny. I do. I think it's kind of hilarious, but she just gave me weird looks, and when I asked her why, she just said that I have a funny laugh. Of course I have a funny laugh. Laughs are supposed to be funny, aren't they? What else are they going to be? Sad?

* * *

_**Thursday, October 8****th**_

**Rolph took away my pen because I tried to draw Warren Peace's hands on my skin and I got a bit distracted and pushed too hard. She gave me crayons, and they're lots of pretty colors. Yellow makes me happy, but red makes me so sad I have to cry. I don't use red anymore. Rolph took it away. I told her to.

* * *

**_Saturday, October 10th, 6:17 pm_

Oh my god, every day is like this explosion of expression. I feel a million and one things before breakfast, and then they give me breakfast and I don't feel anything. Then Rolph comes by to check on me, to give me books that I want or put songs I need on my iPod and then she leaves again, and sometimes Magenta and Layla come to visit, but mostly I'm just by myself for hours and hours.

Then they feed me lunch, and I feel everything and nothing for so long. Sometimes dinner makes it stop again, sometimes dinner just makes it worse. I feel physically battered some days, as though I've been throwing myself at walls for hours, and I worry when I check the LCD clock over the door and see that is _has_ been hours, and I don't know what I've been doing.

Whenever I want it to stop, I make myself remember David running away, hating himself for touching me, and every single hateful thing Warren Peace said to me the last time we talked. It's remarkable how much willpower I can divine from _No one cares, Monroe_. Hours worth. _Your fucking power pushes everyone away _can sustain me for days. I never thought that he would ever be so important, that even not here he could keep me sane.

I'm worried. I'm worried that I'm falling in love with the only Warren Peace that I can still see, the one on the pages of his journal, and that I'm going to leave and find that he's horrid and I've just deluded myself straight into love. With Warren Peace.

God, that's rich.

Rolph is here with dinner. If I didn't want to eat it—which I do, because she made tacos, and that is blatant manipulation, Rolph!—I would just remind myself of that _loathing_ in his eyes when I kissed him outside Kinthus' office.

See. I took the first bite, to make myself forget that.

_8:19 pm_

They took the mumbly-singer song off my iPod. I banged on the door and asked Rolph and she just told me that they took it off because it make me draw on my skin. Pretty enough pictures, I guess, but drawing has never been my strong point. Maybe I should just keep on practicing until I get really good, and then try again.

* * *

_**Sunday, October 18****th**_

**They took my pen away again.

* * *

**_Tuesday, October 20th, 9:02 am_

They've stopped the drugs, I think, because I've stopped going up and down and now I'm basically stable. I took a look at myself today in the mirror, a serious look, and I look _horrible_. Really, really bad. The long hair is reminding me why I cut it so short. I doubt they'll give me a pair of scissors to cut it, considering what I did with this poor, terribly blameless black pen. There are flames on both of my forearms right now, and Rolph tried to heal the ink out of the skin but she's pretty sure that it's permanent. On the bright side, I got wicked good towards the end and they look professional, but from the elbows for a couple of inches they're wobbly and horrible.

I wanted to remind myself of Peace even during the worst bits. Well, guess what, Peace? I'm not going to fucking well forget you now, am I? On the bright side, Mom and Dad are going to _flip_. On the not-so-bright-side, I'm going to have permanent reminders of my suicidal stupidity for the rest of my laugh. Great story for cocktail parties, right? "Oh, the flames? Funny story, that . . ."

I feel like someone released from a psychiatric institution.

I'm afraid, now, not of finding a cure, but that they'll need to continue and this solid break of sanity is going to be nothing but a faint memory in the sea of all the colors. Do you know that all I felt for a while was colors? Black and red and yellow, mostly, all dancing around to the Killers and Rob Pattinson and the Kinks and I think a bit of Party on the Hindenburg to keep me vaguely sane during the really, really bad parts.

There are whole hours of piano playing with no listed artist on my iPod. I deluded myself into thinking that they were Warren Peace, playing piano for me, but it's far more likely that Magenta and Layla got them online from a site of dubious legality. I don't even remember telling anyone that I like piano music.

Maybe they thought it was self-evident from the Party on the Hindenburg fiasco?

Oh my god, I just realized that I've been doing this for a _month. _An entire month of my life, gone to this stupid, horrid hormonal mistake. I'm turning nineteen in eleven days, believe it or not, and for the past month I've been in the mindset of a three year old.

I've been trapped in the consciousness of a child.

Please, please let them be done. I can't handle more of this, I know I can't. I'd rather be hated and despised by everyone—Magenta, Peace, Rolph, my parents, Jane, Missy—than go through another hour of this past month. It's like time doesn't really matter any more, as though every hours is a minute and every minute an eternity.

_9:09 am_

Rolph. I don't know whether or not to ask.

_9:24 am_

She says the breakfast is clean. She says they've found something, not just a drug cocktail but a permanent fix.

I'm too ecstatic to listen properly to the details, which is probably not a good thing. Maybe I should stop writing and start listening.

_9:45 am_

She says that it's like permanent hormone therapy, something they need to cut out of some endocrine center, and I wasn't really paying as much attention as I should've been. I have the attention span of a dead elk right now—it's probably the cocktail.

Oh, right, Rolph.

Anyway, she says that increased appetite for a few months is the only documented side-effect—which, considering how I can currently count my ribs through my _shirt_, might be a good thing—and that they can begin as soon as they're sure that all the drugs are leeched from my system. She says it could be anywhere from a day to three.

She also said I apparently have a visitor (??)

_10:09 am_

It's _Missy_. What's she doing here?

_10:51 am_

She . . . came to apologize.

"I'm sorry," she said, pressing her palms against the glass of the little window and freezing it so that when she drew back there was a pretty ring of frozen crystals, her handprint in the center. "I said really awful things to you, Jenny, and I didn't mean half of them." She was chewing her bottom lip, and she sighed and dropped her forehead against the glass. "I don't want Warren back, because he really was an angsty bastard, but I didn't like the idea of you having him."

"I don't have him," I pointed out.

"He cared," she said, sighing and tapping her fingers. She looked startled by every word slipping from her lips, as though they were all revelations she hadn't ever seen before, painted by the fluorescent light of my little padded corner of insanity. "About you, Jenny. More than he should've, more than you think. When I went in and saw him, _you_ made his heart stop, when you were crying. Do you know how terrible it is, losing something like Warren Peace to your older sister? And I love you, Jenny, but you're not Warren's _type_."

"I didn't know he had a type," I croaked. "I thought he was just a BT."

"Yeah," she said, turning and resting the back of her head just below her handprint. "So did I. But I lost him, somewhere. And believe me, Warren Peace is so not my type, not any more. Would you believe me if I told you that I didn't want you to get hurt?"

"No."

"Yeah, well, I won't try that, then. Just know that I was being selfish and I'm sorry." I walked forward, and put my hand against the handprint in on the glass. Missy's fingers are longer, slimmer, graceful, but we almost—_almost—_fit together.

"You're my twin sister," I said.

"Does that mean you forgive me?" Even through the rustiness of the connection, I could hear the flatness of her voice.

"Maybe. Definitely as soon as I get out of here."

"Okay," said Missy, and her voice was shaky. "Okay, then." And she stood up and left, without turning around. I think she was wiping away tears as the outer door slammed shut behind her, and I was left all alone in my little corner of the universe. Missy doesn't know, then, the truth. She just thinks that I was trying to inanely entice Warren away from her.

Maybe it's better if that's what she always thinks. Knowing the truth would just make her miserable. And while occasionally that thought makes me grin, she _is_ my sister. And I do love her.

I just don't forgive her. Not yet, anyway.

* * *

_Wednesday, October 21st, 7:08 pm_

I'm clean, according to the blood tests. Completely, utterly clean. Rolph's got a friend from the Maxville ER coming up tomorrow to perform the surgery.

This time tomorrow, I could be cured.

_This time tomorrow_. Cured. Under anesthesia and getting my vital nutrients from an IV drip, but cured.

OH MY GOD MY BRAIN IS GOING TO EXPLODE I'M SO HAPPY.

_7:15 pm_

What's that pile of paper in the corner? Rolph brought in a bunch of Xerox boxes and dumped them and left, and I was too busy doing the happy dance of extreme happiness to ask her.

Well, let's take a look, shall we?

_7:21 pm_

Holy shit.

_7:23 pm_

My make-up work. All FOUR FEET AND THREE INCHES OF IT.

_7:26 pm_

At this rate, I'm not even going to graduate.

_7:34 pm_

Is it bad to admit that I can't really find it within myself to really care? If I fail this semester, I'll just take extra classes next semester.

I'll manage. I'll die under the class load and have no friends and they'll have to dig me out with search and rescue dogs for graduation and I'll grow into Jaba the Hut on fast food and take-out curry, but I'll graduate in four years.

Mm. Take-out curry.

_7:40 pm_

Rolph says that I have to eat the goulash. She refuses to get me take-out curry. I tried pulling the Biology card, but she also refuses to believe that a person can die from curry withdrawal. Damn.

* * *

_Thursday, October 22nd, 5:32 am_

Rolph's Friend from the Maxville ER is here.

Oh god, please let this work.

* * *

_Please, please forgive me for the absolutely horrifically late date for this. Frankly, writing this chapter was so, so difficult, because I didn't know which lines to cross and which ones to blur, and how to keep Jenny as, well, _Jenny_ without compromising the rest . . . and yes. Thoughts? The much-awaited surgery is next chapter. Is she cured? Is she not? Should she be cured?_


	14. In which girl desires perfection

**Notes:** All I can say about the delay is: I had computer problems. My computer died. I got a new computer. I post most recent chapter. Originally I was just going to end it here, as I'll be honest, writing this story is fun but becoming unbearably complex considering where the plot goes in the next few chapters, but now I feel guilty. Just as a warning--chapters might be coming slowly after this. I am terribly sorry about the long wait.

* * *

CHAPTER FOURTEEN – In which girl (Jenny) desires perfection (Pudding)

_Don't Care, Don't Know, Doesn't Matter am_

I woke to the rather fuzzy face of Rolph for the third time in god knows how many days. I was finally off of the IV, dressed in a pair of _real pajamas_ rather than a yucky hospital gown, under something that felt suspiciously like a blanket made of wool instead of that creepy, scratchy stuff that they call wool but is, in fact, an alien fiber made from thistles.

"Hey," she said lightly, touching my wrist. "You're awake again, I see."

"Yep," I croaked, and I coughed in the ensuing dryness of my throat. Rolph handed me a glass of water; it tasted like water that had been left out on somebody's windowsill for days, the kind of water that you have to fish the dead bodies of flies out of . . . and yeah, okay, stopping because I'm making myself nauseous.

Anyway, I tasted the water. I gagged. Rolph laughed, and propped herself against the side of the hospital bed. "I take it you're feeling better?" she asked.

"You mean my lovely post-surgery scar?" I asked, gesturing towards my abdomen. "Yeah, I'm properly drugged for that. As for the other bit . . . I don't know."

Rolph grinned at that, a slow smile that picked its way across her face, and she twisted at the hip, still cupping one of my hands in her own, and made a flicking gesture with her wrist towards the door. "Are you hungry?" she asked, and although I hadn't been, suddenly the rumbling began . . . and it didn't _stop_.

"Yes," I said, sounding surprised. "Yes, I am."

The look on my face must have been pure confusion, because Rolph laughed and tapped me on the tip of my nose like I was four. It was not as condescending as it could have been. Mom needs to take notes from Rolph on how to be affectionate without being patronizing. Rolph could teach it at the Y for community service credits, although I suppose she has a stable job so she doesn't really need community service credits like I do.

Have I mentioned lately that my attention span is shot to hell?

At any rate, my eyes were caught by the only bit of color in the room other than Rolph (who was, by the way, despicably attractive, glowing like some Egyptian queen with her golden skin and black hair. I probably look like a drowned rat), which was a profusion of daisies spilling out of a green crystal vase at the foot of the cot. Rolph followed my gaze, and her expression was rueful.

"David," she said. "He tried to visit you three times."

"He did?" I asked dully, looking at the daisies. It's probably awful to admit that my first thoughts had been of Warren Peace. "That's nice of him."

"Hmm, quite nice," said Rolph, and we sat in stilted silence for a few minutes, before the door to the room cracked open, and in came the only thing that I wanted at that moment.

Pudding. Chocolate.

"Gimme!" I cried, reaching out and waggling my fingers. I was reduced by my complete and utter desire to cavewoman grunts. "Rolph, pudding. Now." She was giving me odd looks, odd looks that were hopeful and faintly victorious, and then she slipped off my bed and revealed that it was not, in fact, a Hapless Nurse delivering the savior (pudding), but her wayward son.

He was frowning, and he looked sorry. I felt guilty, but not that much.

Because while my heart was suddenly heavy, too heavy for my chest and probably the cot and the structural supports of the hospital's foundation, there was no desire.

Okay. That's a lie. There was desire, because Warren Peace is . . . yum.

But at the moment, my body wanted chocolate pudding more than it wanted Warren Peace. I laughed deliriously. "Rolph," I said, intending to order her to get me pudding again, but I was interrupted by none other than His Broodiness.

"It didn't work," he said dully.

Rolph's face crumpled. "Oh, oh Jenny," she said. "When you didn't react, I thought—"

"What? What are you talking about?" I demanded, my eyebrows falling together low over my eyes. "I don't feel a thing."

"What?" echoed Warren. He was frowning again, clenching his fists. "You don't _feel_ that?"

"Uh, _no_," I said. "No offense, Warren, but if the choice is between you and the pudding, I'd chose the pudding." I looked up at Rolph's face hopefully. "Pudding?"

She ignored me. "Oh god, what if the painkillers are just dulling the sensitivity? We have no way to check, none at all."

"You could always take me off the painkillers," I pointed out, eyeing the cart. "If you give me pudding, I'm sure I'll be fine . . ."

"No," said Warren and Rolph at the same time.

"Why not?" I asked.

"If you're taking painkillers, Monroe, there's a reason. It's called pain. Be glad it's not there." With that said, Warren dismissed me and turned to his mother. She was rubbing her chin and opening and closing her mouth without saying anything.

"If we," she began, and then shook her head. "No, no, that won't work."

"Will someone _please_ give me some pudding?" I cried piteously, and was ignored. Fine. Extreme times called for extreme measures, I figured. "I know how to find out!"

That got their attention. "How?" asked Rolph.

"Give me pudding first." Warren sighed and rolled his eyes, and then gathered the little plastic cup of yumminess and a spoon and came around the side of bed to hand me both. I reached with my left hand, exposing the underside of my forearm, and he froze in the process. I was inches, centimeters from my goal, and then—he put it down on the side table, out of my reach, and grabbed my arm.

His fingers were lovely and warm, but they were also _keeping me from my pudding_.

"What happened?" he asked, his voice low and scratchy, and he traced one of the lines with the tip of his finger. It was calloused from the piano, and it caught on the dip where my vein ran.

"Hmm?" I asked, arching my back and reaching around him. Damn. Out of my arm span. "Oh, that. I went a bit crazy during the testing phase. Nothing major. Warren, please don't take this personally, but if you do not hand me that container soon, I'm going to stab you in the eyeballs."

"A bit crazy?" There it was again, the ignoring bit.

"_Yes_," I said impatiently. "Ask Rolph."

"She wanted to be closer to you," explained Rolph, and while right now I am completely and utterly embarrassed by that realization, at right then time I really didn't care. The pudding wobbled enticingly, shivering on the bedside table. _Come on, Jenny_, it urged. _You want me, don't you? I'm chocolately and rich_.

"So she gave herself a _tattoo_?"

"With a ballpoint pen," said Rolph quietly.

"Mom, you didn't _heal her_? What about these bruises?"

"The bruises are the result of the healing. And I couldn't get the ink out, not entirely."

"Then what good are you?"

"Oi!" I cried, realizing what they were arguing about. "It's not Rolph's fault that I went a bit psychotic, is it? I mean, I did a lot worse than those stupid tattoos. Can we please return to the part of the proceedings when you give me the pudding and I tell you how to make sure I'm cured?"

Warren sighed, releasing my wrist so slowly his fingers burned as they skimmed the skin. Then he handed me the pudding, sans spoon, and as he turned around and reached for the cart, I dug my finger into the middle of the warm squishiness and stuck the digit into my mouth.

The flavor. The warmth. The chocolate.

"Mm_mm_," I moaned. Warren turned back so quickly he probably got whiplash. He was giving the pudding a faintly suspicious look, as though it had threatened imminent world domination or the end of Greenpeace or some such. I dipped my finger into the pudding and then dropped back my head and let the enjoyment sort of roll over me as I wrapped my tongue around my finger.

"Are you _done_?" asked Warren in a strangled voice.

"Hmm?" I asked, straightening up. Rolph looked like she was trying to keep from laughing, and as I blinked away the hazy of my chocolate-gasm she had to turn towards the curtain in the far side of the room to hide her shaking shoulders. Finally she cleared her throat and expertly twisted on her feet so she was facing us again. "Oh, right."

I carefully put the pudding on the bedside table—well within reach, just in case—turned to Warren Peace, snagged the collar of his leather jacket, and kissed him. Not forcefully or terribly romantically. There were no starbursts or fireworks. I just pressed my more-than-slightly chapped lips against his, so lightly there was almost no pressure at all, and then I settled back, releasing his collar.

"See?" I said, turning to Rolph and nonchalantly shifting my balance so I could grab the pudding container. "Nothing."

Which, now that I think about it, was probably what prompted the events that followed. Considering that Warren snarled "Nothing?!" like it was a personal insult, yeah, I'd say that I was sort of asking for it.

Don't blame me. It was the Pudding Thrall.

But Warren, the skin under his leather jacket literally smoking, had no intention of taking his frustration out on the pudding (something for which, in the split second between when his lips parted and he wrapped his fingers through my too-long hair, I was eternally grateful). Instead, he grabbed my head and proceeded to give his physical enactment of the Not-Nothing Kiss.

Thoroughly. Mind-blowingly. And chocolately.

The latter, now that I reflect, might have been because of me. But in between the press of his lips against the corner of my mouth and the flick of his tongue against my lower lip, I sort of lost track where Warren Peace's mouth was in relation to Jenny Monroe's. The only time I really came to myself was when he gave a slow, almost painful pull at my hair, and I reacted by biting his lip. Hard enough to bruise, probably, but he growled in his throat and didn't complain.

Then the Not-Nothing Kiss was over, and I could barely breath and Warren was _definitely_ smoking now, and realizing this he stripped off his precious leather jacket and flexed his fingers a couple times to probably hold back the flames. He was smirking faintly, under the cover of his hair. Rolph was utterly still, looking a combination of shocked and amused. It took her a couple tries to speak. "Well?" she finally asked.

"It wasn't _nothing_," I said carefully, "but it wasn't the Thrall, either."

Warren's eyes shot to mine, and his look was accusing and horrible. "It wasn't nothing," I repeated forcefully. "I'm just telling you that this is good old-fashioned lust." And upon realizing that Warren and I were having a Moment of a Sexual Nature directly in front of his mother, I blushed, looked down, and rubbed my hands awkwardly down my bruised forearms.

"Oh," said Warren.

"_Oh_," said Rolph. "Well, that explains . . . a lot . . ."

"Huh?" I asked.

"Ha!" cried the curtain at the other end of the room.

"Sorry?" I asked, and the curtain gave an awkward cough and shuffled a bit.

"Julianne," said Rolph, and the curtain sighed and twitched to the side to reveal Julianne and Kinthus, neither looking particularly shame-faced at having been caught out spying on two teenagers who had been about two seconds away from full-fledged necking a minute before. As though coming upon this rather sobering realization, Warren stopped smoking.

"Well, if one reviews your son's actions during the past two months, it makes quite a lot of sense," continued Julianne, pushing her Coke-bottle glasses farther up her nose. She blinked at us, her eyes almost inhumanly large. "You had quite a reaction to Jenny's tears during testing, young man. Not to mention, of course, killing her fledgling relationship with David Pierson and when you set Richard's office on fire. Both times."

"You set Kinthus's office on fire?" I demanded.

"Yes," said Warren through gritted teeth. "The first time was an accident, Professor Kinthus."

"Oh, of course it was, young man," said Julianne. "A remarkable display of pent-up lust. And self-loathing at your actions in the much-maligned women's bathroom, if I am not mistaken. And being a behavioral biologist, I am not mistaken." Warren looked torn between being insulted and embarrassed, and Julianne barreled onward in her usual way. "But the second was quite deliberate."

"That really was bad of you," interjected Rolph.

"That was an original Oriental rug," added Kinthus almost ruefully.

"You lied to me," Warren said.

"No," corrected Rolph. "We didn't tell you where we were keeping Jenny. And I maintain that we made the correct decision under the circumstances, although not even I predicted your methodical destruction of Richard's office."

"You set Kinthus's office on fire?" I repeated weakly.

"They wouldn't tell me what happened," said Warren tightly. From the way he was positioned, I couldn't make out his expression clearly. "I got a bit . . . antsy."

"You two make a fine pair," said Kinthus, a little sarcastically. "The past month has been the most exhilarating of my life, and I don't mean that in the entirely positive sense."

"Your office was hideous, dear," said Julianne. "Now you can petition the board to get new furnishings. You should thank him."

"I will not!" cried Kinthus. His scraggly-on-the-sides hair bristled with indignation.

"Thank you," said Julianne. "The furnishings were hideous."

Warren ran his fingers through his hair, flashing the tattoos whose twins I now had—unfortunately—adorning my own arms. "My pleasure, Professor Kinthus."

And I, ever the stealthy one, reached out with my tentacles to snatch the pudding cup from the bedside table before someone else decided to move it for some inane reason. I was salivating, hearts in my eyes, and about to dig in when Warren handed me a spoon.

The scientists filed out, muttering amongst themselves about popping out to visit Rolph's Friend from the Maxville ER and Oriental rugs, and still Warren was holding the spoon under my nose. I don't know what, exactly, made me pause, but eventually we were alone again, and each left holding one half of the Pudding Equation for Perfection.

"Are you going to take the spoon, Monroe?" asked Warren, tucking his hair behind his ear in a faintly feminine fashion.

"Oh, right," I said, and I took it rather than admit that I'd spent most of the past minute or so of vaguely awkward silence staring at him. I was wondering how to breach the subject of the attraction he obviously still meant for me (which included subcategory conversation topics like What To Do About Missy, Do You Actually Feel That Or Is It Just A Lingering Side-Effect, and Oh By the Way I Might Be In Love With You) when Rolph popped her head in and called "Warren, the doctor needs to see Jenny."

Warren blinked, and then turned to look at his mother with a slightly glazed expression. "Right," he said. "I'll be right back, Monroe."

"I'm certainly not going anywhere," I said, and he made to get off the bed, but I grabbed his hand before he could do so. I pretended to be terribly engrossed by extracting the little plastic spoon from his fist, all the better to surreptitiously grope his ridiculously attractive fingers. I hadn't realized how little I was compared to him, at least not in the extreme sense, but watching my stubby little fingers attempt to ply open his Olympian grip was like watching an ant try to lift a slice of watermelon.

"Warren," I growled. "Spoon."

"I hope you and the pudding are very happy together," he told me as the doctor coughed emphatically from the doorway. He released the spoon into my possession and turned to leave. His leather jacket was still folded across the bed, but I got the distinct impression that he had every intention of being back for it soon.

"All right, Miss Monroe," said the doctor briskly. "I want you to sit up for me . . ." And he proceeded to take my pudding from my lap, put it on the dinner cart, and push it out to the hallway for a nurse to take away. MY PUDDING.

"I loathe you," I told him.

"Sorry, what was that?"

"Nothing."

"All right, just breathe out for me—deep breaths."

The physical went well, the doctor told me that I had one more night of incarceration before he would release me (to go home, he said as strictly as he could, not to my dorm room, and I had the stifle the immediate urge to laugh at _that_ knee-slapper), and once again I was alone in my hospital room. This time, I was sans pudding and insanely hungry.

My savior was along a few minutes later. Unfortunately, although he was bearing a bag of Moe's tacos and some Cool Ranch Doritos, he wasn't the savior I was preparing myself for. "David," I hissed as his familiar tall frame slipped through the door. "You are _not_ supposed to be here."

"And _you're_ supposed to have a broken leg," he said critically as he crossed the room. "What are you really doing here, Jenny? Did he do something to you?"

"Listen," I said, folding my hands over my stomach to either keep myself from strangling him or snatching the Moe's bag from his arms like a psychotic preschooler, "David, I appreciate your concern. I think it's really a great sign that you're so concerned for my well fare. But I am fine. I took a tumble, hurt my leg, and now I'm in the hospital for a bit of recuperation."

"Why wouldn't they let me see you?" he asked, putting down the Moe's bag and folding his arms across his chest. I gave a cry of delight and in approximately one half of a millisecond had the bag open and was digging into a soft-shell taco. It was chicken, unfortunately, but loaded with cilantro and guacamole and therefore at least marginally edible. (And friggin fantastic, but that is neither here nor there.)

I gave a sigh of pure bliss.

"Jenny?" said David, leaning over me to check me over with a fine-toothed comb. "Why wouldn't they let me in to see you?"

"General orders," I said through a mouthful of sour cream and melted cheese. "I don't want to see my parents. It was a blanket block, David, not just you."

"Oh," he said, leaning back on his heels and nodding thoughtfully. I'd finished the first taco and was now cleansing my palate with the Doritos before attempting at the second. "So what's Warren Peace doing skulking outside, Jenny?"

"His mom is my doctor," I said. It was, vaguely, the truth.

"That doesn't explain anything," said David. "Why don't you tell me the truth, Jenny?"

"I just did," I said. I took a bite out of the second taco to savor the complex flavors and buy myself a few extra minutes. "Don't you believe me?"

"Believe you?" said David, an eyebrow raised so far that I couldn't even see it under the fringe of his hair. "Jenny, dating you was a lesson in semantics. I'm still not entirely sure what's going on."

"Join the club," I said. "Thanks a million for the tacos, by the way. I'm absolutely _starved_."

"Haven't you been eating?" he asked, and I shrugged.

"IV drip," I said. "And for some strange reason, liquefied cheap Mexican food just doesn't feel the same as a solid weight of sodium-rich Grade-E beef and lettuce in your stomach." I patted said organ lightly, and felt a twinge in response; the meds were probably wearing off, and I winced and shifted.

David, possessor of the Eyes of a Hawk, saw me wince. Then he saw my arms. I don't know what he first reacted to, the flickering ink of the tattoos which proclaimed _I was done by a non-professional_, or the healing bruises from Rolph's attempts to draw the ink out, but he gave a sort of wordless roar and pointed at my limbs.

"David," I said, leaning forward and ineffectually hushing him. "Dude, shut up before someone comes—"

Warren came through the door milliseconds later, his left hand curled around something that looked suspiciously like a fireball before he put his arm behind his back mid-swing. "Pierson," he said. "You've been sneaky. Visiting hours are over."

"What happened to her?" asked David. He was terribly, horribly angry, and I felt sudden sympathy wash over me. The only way David would react so suddenly and violently was if . . .

"Your mom?" I asked.

David jerked around and stared at me for a couple seconds, before he jerkily nodded. "Jenny, you don't have to stay quiet—"

"Pierson, you're getting on my nerves—"

"Beevis, can it," I scowled irritably at Warren. "Take a seat. David, sit down for a second." Warren took the uncomfortably padded chair by the window, a horrid scowl of his own twisting his features, and I took David's hand between mine and tried to pat it sympathetically.

"Look, David, I realize you don't believe me, but let me tell you right now that I didn't fall down stairs or anything this past month. I was"—and here I looked at Warren and thought to myself _I better sure as freaking hell be making the right choice, because otherwise is this going to be the worst move in the history of romantic interludes_—"in a sanatorium for the past month."

David's eyebrows drew together; he frowned at my arms, putting together the oddly-shaped puzzle pieces in his mind. "I told you earlier that my brain doesn't always work properly, and that's true, and so I went to this place and they, um, helped me. And in the process I did a couple stupid things, like draw on my arms with a ballpoint pen."

I tried to keep the narrative as inflectionless as possible; I didn't want to draw in David's sympathy, I wanted to inform him and then send him on his way so that he could at least pat himself on the back in the future with a cheerful _Thank god you managed to miss _that_ one_. "The bruises are from the doctor, who tried to pull out the ink to keep me from getting an infection."

I released his hands then, to save him and me the trial and embarrassment of him breaking the contact himself, and I continued to speak towards my feet, huddled at the edge of the non-hospital-regulation blanket. "I've got a few issues I need to work out, David, and it's probably best that you don't get involved with me while I do that."

I waited for an eternity and a half, wondering if he would renew his declarations of affection, or maybe dramatically storm from the premises like something out of _Passions_. I didn't expect the dry brush of his lips against my forehead, the soft run of his fingers through my hair, and then he gave Warren a half-respectful nod—maybe man-speak for _Good luck with this one_, or _Take care of her_, or _I'm sorry_—and slipped out of the door almost silently.

Then Warren did something ridiculously sensitive (my spidey senses are all a-tingling, warning me that instances like this will probably be few and far between in the future), which was he went out into the hall, and came back in with a familiar black-covered notebook and ballpoint pen.

We still need to talk, of course, because the Not-Nothing Kiss is still hanging like this infinitesimally heavy weight between us, and there's also the matter of My Sister the Ex, and how in God's green hell I'm going to manage to worm my way out of a failing grade in every class this semester, but he just handed me the notebook, took to the uncomfortable chair, and proceeded to set into _Titus Andronicus_.

Ugh. I guess it's my responsibility as the only semi-sane person in this room to, you know, facilitate the discussion.

* * *

_So. How does the discussion go? Anybody?_


End file.
